Meat-Free Monday #4 - Quorn Pasta Bake

I am a bad, bad blogger and neglected to do this post last week. Maybe I was busy being a big, fatty carnivore last Monday, I don't remember. Still, never one to leave something half finished, here is the final installment of this Meat-Free Monday feature. And this week I thought I'd give Quorn a go. Quorn is made from something called Mycoprotein and looks pretty much exactly like meat. It's low in fat and high in protein and fibre so is great is you're looking to make your usual meals healthier. I've cooked with it a few times before and it absorbs the flavours you're cooking with really well without leaving that fatty residue that cooking meat can produce. I knew I wanted to do a Quorn recipe for this feature  but when I had a sneaky gander at the website it was just perfect; they're currently encouraging people to take part in the #makeonechange challenge whereby you change from meat to Quorn for one meal each week for a month. Sounds familiar?! Check it out here if you fancy giving it a go.

Anywho, onwards to the food! As a very busy (aka lazy) student I'm a big fan of the ol' quick and easy pasta bake. Literally bung a few ingredients together and whack it in the oven with a whopping load of cheese of top. Half an hour later a culinary masterpiece will emerge. Last night I was craving pasta bake. I got this recipe from a student cookbook I bought for first year at university and that book practically taught me to cook. Or at least how to survive between the holidays, I'd say actual competency in the kitchen came later. I went for this beefy pasta bake and simply swapped the beef mince for Quorn mince. To recreate my meal you will need:

250g Quorn mince

2 large carrots

1/2 onion

4 cups of pasta

1 can of condensed tomato soup

1 cup of grated cheese

Chop and fry the onion. Chop and boil the carrots. Fry the Quorn mince. Meanwhile boil the pasta. Combine the above and pour over the condensed soup. Mix ingredients together. Transfer into a oven-proof dish. Sprinkle over the grated cheese. Bung it into a pre-heated oven for half an hour. Whap together a salad or some vegetables to serve while you wait impatiently for the magic to occur.

Et volia!

Now...gobble gobble gobble!!

Admittedly not the most attractive of meals but who really gives a crap when it tastes this good?! Thumbs up for Quorn! Literally would hardly know the difference. Y'all should give it a try.

Warning: this meal is designed for two portions. You will want to eat it all though. I leave it up to you whether you resist or not...

Meat-Free Monday #3 - The frittata and the vegetarian feast

Oh my God it's Friday and I'm only just doing this post?! I scandalize even myself. So I'm making up for it by posting this awesome little frittata recipe. Maybe we could change the name of this feature to Fritatta Friday just to make us all feel a little better about this whole situation. And then there was the amazing vegetarian feast that my housemate cooked the other day. Oh, but I'm getting ahead of myself here - back to the frittata.

I have an awful secret. Which I now feel ready to tell the world. Here it is...I am a failure at cooking eggs. I can cook all kinds of food (not well you understand but I can just about throw a meal together) but eggs are a no-no. I went to university not even really knowing how to poach an egg. When Elliot realised this dire situation and taught me to make scrambled egg I panicked when it turned lumpy and stirred like a manic until he pointed out that was the egg scrambling. Embarrassing I know. So anyway, I fail at anything with egg in. But earlier in the week I was feeling a bit ill and icky, and when I was ill as a kid my mum would make me eggs. So I decided to conquer eggs once and for all. With a little help from Hugh.

My housemate bought this book with his birthday monies and it has some legendary recipes in. All vegetarian of course. This is where I got the instructions from on how to cook a frittata.

For this recipe I used a medium sized potato, a handful of brocolli trees, 1/3 of a courgette, a handful of mushrooms and 3 eggs. Basically you just cook all the vegetables separately. Then whisk up the eggs and season. Lay the veggies out in a layer in the bottom of a frying pan which is preheated with a drop of oil. Pour over the eggs and wait! Don't stir it, don't move it, don't even breathe near it for fear that the eggs will rebel and your frittata will morph into a scrambled mess. Or maybe this rules only apply the those of us who are frittata virgins. Hugh clearly states it should be left until nearly all the egg has cooked with only a thin layer of liquid egg on top, and Hugh knows his stuff.

Now grate over some cheese and whap it under a preheated grill, frying pan and all, until the cheese is deliciously melted and the egg is all cooked. Then you om-a-nom-nom it down in record time. Alongside a giant dollop of ketchup o'course!

It was super delicious and so so easy. I would cook this a hundred times over. If only to prove to the world that I have conquered eggs.

Right, on to the feast to end all feasts! The beast of feast! The...yeah, the vegetarian feast. James made this on Wednesday night when we had friends round, all recipes from Hugh's book. We had garlicky minty mushy peas, quinoa salad with squash and fennel, and a tomato and goats cheese tart. Everything was super yummy and devoured in record time. And then we had some amazing homemade coffee ice cream with berries. And I don't even like the flavour of coffee but I could have eaten the whole lot myself.

Quinoa salad

Garlicky minty mushy peas

Tomato and goats cheese tart

All photos are taken straight out the book because the food was gobbled before I could get a photograph. Only one more Monday left in May for another meat-free recipe. I'll try and actually remember next week. Though I am going home for the bank holiday weekend to soak up some weedy little northern sunshine so don't go getting too hopefully. Hope everyone has a great long weekend of wonderfulness!

Meat-Free Monday #2 - Sweet Potato and Spinach Curry

So, the is the second week of trying out a new vegetarian recipe on a Monday for all of May, you can see my first attempt here. I was a bit more prepared this week so I took this time to make this sweet potato and spinach curry. I don't know about you but I love Indian food. You simply cannot beat a take-out curry feast. But that is a now and again sort of treat, so I like to be able to make a good curry at home to fill in the gaps. Usually I use chicken but this was just delicious with sweet potato and spinach; the sweet potato gave the curry a wonderful sweetness. Here's what I used to make this dish:

2 sweet potatoes
1 large handful of spinach
1 onion
1 tbsp of oil
1 clove of garlic
2 tsp of ground cumin
2 tsp of chilli powder
A tin of chopped tomatoes
Salt and pepper to season

I chopped and boiled the potato first until it was becoming soft. Once I had chopped and fried the onion and garlic in the oil I added the sweet potato and chopped tomotoes to the frying pan. Then I added the seasoning and spices before leaving it to summer down until the flavours had developed. I added the spinach last and waited until it has wilted before serving the curry alongside rice flavoured with pilau seasoning.

This was just one of my usual curry recipes but adding veg instead of meat - simples! But this feature is about experimenting with food after all so if you fancy making a curry yourself take the ingredient list with a (metaphorical) pinch of salt and play around with the flavour types and amount of spices you add. This meal was totally om-nom-nom-able though. Definitely glad I made enough to freeze ready for when I can't be bothered to cook...or when I can't wait any longer to have such deliciousness in my tummy again!

Epic size fatty portion...GONE!

P.S. Today's BEDM challenge is 10 things that make you happy. This is such a great idea, and one I was already planning as one of my future Ten Things post as part of a 'things that make me happy' sort of series. So I'm being naughty and writing off today's challenge (shhhh, don't tell on me!). Watch this space in the next couple of week for the start of this post series though!

Meat-Free Monday #1 - Roasted Vegetable Couscous

Thank you world, for our house and lives are once again blessed by internet connection! I hate to hashtag but its just so appropriate...#firstworldproblems (sorry, sorry!). Seriously, I don't know how the developing world live without the joys of Google chrome at their fingertips.

Anyway, I've decided to get some more regular blog features on the go because I enjoy writing the Thankful Thursday posts so much; its something to look forward to each week and its also great if I'm ever a bit stuck for something to blog about. I thought I'd maybe try out a few ideas but posting weekly on a theme which will last a month and then I will change to a different theme. This way I get to try out a few ideas to see what comes most naturally, what I enjoy writing about and what you guys enjoy seeing on the blog (please feel free to write comments on anything I blog about, I love love love reading what you think!).

So to get the ball rolling, I thought I'd make this month Meat-Free Monday May. Every Monday in May I'm going to cook a vegetarian dinner and share it with you all. I came up with this plan when I realised how much I've cut down on my intake of meat in the past few weeks. My housemate is a vegetarian and, although I don't think I could ever give up all meat products forever as he has, seeing him cook has definitely inspired me to try out new meat-free recipes, simply because when he cooks it just looks and smells so yummy. For example, he made this butternut squash casserole and I copied him and now make it quite regularly. I'd never used butternut squash before I made this casserole and its safe to say I am now an butternut squash fangirl. Eating less meat recently has definitely saved me money and made my meals healthier, and I've come to realise than a vegetarian meal doesn't necessarily equate to rabbit food. I really want to continue to enjoy trying new meat-free meals and hopefully Meat-Free Mondays throughout May will encourage me to carry on.

So this first week I've made roasted vegetable couscous. It really is the easiest thing in the world to make and that's because I didn't have the opportunity to go shopping for ingredients for a planned meal. so I just grabbed a few veggies out the fridge and got down to chopping. I chose to use sweet potatoes, red bell pepper, courgettes and butternut squash. You could add pretty much any vegetables which are suitable for roasting; other goods ones include red onion, aubergine, and tomatoes.

Once chopped I simply placed these all together in a roasting tin and drizzled liberally with olive oil before popping them in the oven which I had preheated to a high temperature. Depending on which veggies you are using you might want to put those which take longest to roast in the oven first and add the others later but, to be honest, I couldn't be bothered with such organisational skills.

This recipe is great for if you have something else to be getting on with as now all you have to do is wait for about half an hour until they are roasted to your liking. I had nothing really to be doing though so I read my book and grabbed some doggy love.

Just as the vegetables were starting to look yum-tastic I sorted out the couscous (the food so nice they named it twice!). Simply add boiling water, stir, wait 5 minutes and then fluff up with a fork. And voila!

It might not look it from the picture but this meal was very filling, and most importantly delicious. I would definitely make this again on an evening when I am running low either on ingredients or time.

Any one got any ideas for some other vegetarian dishes I could try out next Monday? Until then, I challenge all the meat eaters out there to try a new meat-free meal this week. Be sure to comment below and let me know if you do!!

A Thoroughly Delicious Weekend

This weekend might finally herald the beginning of spring! What is that? That bright thing in the sky? The sun!? No! It can't be! Funny how just the sight of a blue sky can make you feel all optimistic.

A dose of optimism was definitely in order after the amazingness of last weekend in Liverpool and Lancaster being much empty of exciting people because its still the Easter holidays. So I found myself at a bit of a loose end and utterly bored this weekend. So I cleaned the house to within an inch of its life. And then I filled it with beautiful smells by cooking and baking. Here's some of the deliciousness that I concocted in last two days.

Chicken Hoisin and Garlic Stirfry

1 small chicken breast

1/2 red pepper

handfull of broccoli trees

handfull of mushrooms

Sharwoods chilli noodles

Sainsburys hoisin and garlic stirfry sauce (or similar)

OK, so this was a bit of a cheat as I used a pre-bought hoisin and garlic sauce from Sainburys but it tasted so good I don't even care! Basically, just fry up all the ingredients until cooked and chuck the noodles in a pan of boiling water for several minutes until soft. Toss everything through the sachet of sauce and heat for a minute or so. And volia! Nom it down!!

Butternut Squash Casserole

 1/2 butternut squash

1 sweet potato

2 large carrots

1 large onion

tablespoon of paprika 

tin of chopped tomatoes

300 ml of stock

2 garlic cloves

cup of quinoa or couscous

a sprinkling of cheese

Last month James bought a butternut squash and made this amazing looking and smelling casserole. So I thought I would be adventurous; even though I'd never cooked with one before, I bought a butternut squash too and attempted to copy the dish. 

Firstly, chop and cook boil the sweet potato, squash and carrot until just beginning to soften. Meanwhile fry the onions and garlic, adding the paprika once the onions are soft. Then toss everything together in a big casserole pot and add the chopped tomatoes, stock and seasoning. Simmer for 15 minutes. Then add the quinoa before simmering for another 15 minutes with the lid over the pot. The quinoa absorbs the liquid and saves the texture from being altogether mushy at the end. 

I served this with some curly kale. Getting more adventurous with the vegetables these days, that's what living with a vegetarian will do to you! And, course, must not forget a grating of cheese. I used Red Leicester as that's just what I have in the fridge but parmesam would be perfect. Totally completed it. This amount of ingredients makes enough for about 4 generous servings so I like to put some in the freezer for when I can't be bothered to cook. 

Sorry - poor quality photo because of the steam. Best served  hot hot hot so the cheese will melt.

Millionaires Shortbread

Shortbread Base

125g butter

55g caster sugar

180g plain flour

Caramel

can of condensed milk

150g butter

150 brown sugar

Chocolate Topping

400g milk chocolate

Preheat the oven to gas mark 5/190 degrees. To make the shortbread cream the butter and caster sugar until smooth and then add the flour, working it together into a firm dough with first a wooden spoon and then your hands. Roll out flat at the desired thickness and bake in a brownie tray for about 20 minutes. Allow to cool completely.

For the caramel middle gently melt together the butter and the sugar in a pan. Add the condensed milk to the pan and bring to rapid boil. After several minutes the mixture will thicken. Pour over the shortbread base and chill in the fridge until set firm. 

Break the chocolate into pieces and melt. Pour it over the caramel and chill in the fridge until set. I say to use 400g of chocolate but this is taking into account the fact that I ate at least 30g whilst breaking it up for melting. And then there's the fact that some of the chocolate gets stuck on the spoon and in the bowl  and requires licking off. Ahhh, baking is such a chore!...

Now I'm watching a film in my lovely clean house, full of delicious casserole and millionaires shortbread. Perfect end to the weekend.

What have you all been up to?

Cookie Monster Cupcakes

All the ingredients used to make these cakes

As tomorrow is comic relief, we are having a baking competition at work where we can bake cakes, bring them in and the best looking and tasting wins a prize (and the glory) whilst, most importantly, others can buy the cakes therefore raising money for charity.

I decided if I was going to bake a cake, then I was going to BAKE a cake and make it good!! So I made cookie monster cupcakes.

I used that old and simple sponge cake recipe of 100g each of butter, caster sugar and self-raising flour with a touch of baking powder and then two eggs. Whap it all together in a bowl and fling it around a bit with a wooden spoon until its a smooth batter. Try not to eat the batter; raw eggs and all that but, more importantly, less cakes later on!

Then fill muffin cases about two thirds full with the batter. I bought these gorgeous Britiain themed cupcake cases on offer in Sainsburys.

Cute cupcakes cases

I put them in the oven on a low heat. Recipes I looked at say on gas mark 4 but our oven is electric and doesn't have numbers on the dial so I just turned it down low and then kept checking the cakes regularly. They were done after about half an hour when they were springy to touch. While I waited I kept with the cooking theme and watched the new series of Masterchef. I'm routing for James.

So, I've got my baked cakes and they're cooled but they're looking pretty naked. To make the buttercream icing I added one part butter to two parts icing sugar and then added blue food colouring. As it turns out, you need a huge amount of food colouring to turn the icing a good shade of blue so I added another one part of icing sugar again to make a mouldable buttercream icing consistency. I spooned about three quarters of the icing onto the cupcakes so that the tops were completely covered, then the rest was piped on. I didn't have an piping bag or nozzles or anything, I just put the icing in a sandwich bag and sniped a tiny bit off the corner. This way, you can make the cool furry effect of the cookie monster.

This piping business took patience and a steady hand. And buckets of time. I also found that a bit of David Guetta and Jay-Z helped. Perked my up when my hand was cramping up and all that. Once this is all done though the best bit is next - adding the cookies! I broke them in half and shoved the bigger half into the icing and into the sponge a bit too. Then I added soft mints with a dot of black icing in the middle for eyes. And voila!! Some pretty awesome cookie monster cupcakes! I really want the feel that winning glory...

They were much easier than I thought to make, though I was quite scared after seeing the failblog attempt. I would definitely make these again. Now I just have to get them to work tomorrow in one piece....

What else have people done for comic relief??
H x