Baked

Summer Vegetable and Goats Cheese Wellington

/ Claire / 1 Comment

Super easy to make – summer vegetables and goats cheese encased in puff pastry.  A tasty and filling lunch dish, that is good hot or cold and served with lots of salad.

Roast Veg parcel

Ingredients:
1 red pepper, cut into large chunks
1 yellow pepper, cut into large chunks
2 small courgettes/zucchini, halved lengthways and cut into chunks
2 red onions, cut into wedges
1tbs dried oregano
1 pack of chestnut/cremini mushrooms, chopped
½ clove garlic microplaned (optional)
Small bag of baby spinach, washed and spun dry
1 tbs Thyme leaves, chopped
Goat cheese, such as chevre, roughly broken up into crumbles
Puff pastry – either home made or shop bought and rolled into a rectangle
1 tbs butter
1tbs olive oil
1tsp salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 Egg and a little milk for brushing

Method:
Pre-heat the oven to 200°C

Roasted veg

Toss the peppers, courgettes and onions in half the olive oil, oregano, salt and pepper and roast until tender and the edges starting to brown. This will take around 30 minutes. Leave to cool

In the meantime, sauté the mushrooms on a medium heat in the butter and olive oil with the garlic until golden. Remove and using the same pan, add the spinach and sauté for another minute or two until wilted and leave to cool.

Place the puff pastry onto a lined baking sheet and cut thick strips around the edge, leaving the centre intact.

Mix together all the vegetables and thyme and place onto the pastry, topping with the goats cheese.

Brush the strips with a little of the egg wash and fold over the ends first and then alternate side strips until the filling is encased. Cover with cling film and chill for an hour or overnight if you are making ahead.

When you are ready to bake, brush the egg wash all over the pastry and bake for around 45 minutes until the pastry is golden brown and cooked through.

Roasted veg parcel sice

Mini Blackberry Cheesecakes with Apple Roses

/ Claire / Leave a comment

Apple roses have been done to death on Pinterest, but they are still delicious, fun to make and look very pretty.  These apple roses are in the middle of mini baked cheesecakes with tart blackberries.

cheesecakes

When I was a child, my uncle used to make elderberry wine.  Every year, one one day in late August, would be the day we would bring our baskets and containers and all go with him.  There was an old, disused railway bank near his house that was covered with brambles and elderberry bushes with millions of lovely purple berries.  He would get his elderberries and make the potent homemade wine and we would pick blackberries to make pies, crumbles, cakes and jam.

I really miss our family trips to forage for those lovely berries, but I still love blackberries to this day.

These mini cheesecakes are ideal for an addition to afternoon tea, a bite-sized dessert or an after-school treat.

Crust:
2 cups/approx 200g of digestive biscuit crumbs
2 tbs sugar
2oz/57g butter – melted

Cheesecake:
16oz/454g full fat and room temperature cream cheese
¼ cup/60g room temperature sour cream
1 cup/237g sugar
2 tsp lemon zest
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 extra large eggs
Blackberry puree – made with 1 heaped cup of fresh blackberries, 2 tbs sugar, heated until the juices run and the sugar dissolves. Push through a fine sieve to remove the seeds and leave to cool completely. You need ¼ cup of the puree. OR you can of course cheat and use ¼ cup of seedless blackberry jam.

Apple Roses:
2 crisp apples, preferably with a rosy red skin. I used Pink Lady apples
1tbs lemon juice
5tbs water

Cinnamon sugar:
¼ cup/60g caster sugar mixed with 2 tsp cinnamon.

Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF and line a muffin tin with 12 cupcake cases.

Mix the crumbs, sugar and butter together and divide the mixture equally into the cupcake cases, pressing down with a spoon for a firm base.

To make the filling, place the cream cheese, sugar, sour cream, lemon zest and vanilla into a stand mixer with the paddle attachment and beat until very creamy, with no lumps.  Add the eggs and beat again until fully combined.  Stir in the blackberry puree, you can fully mix in, or leave as a marbled finish.

Carefully pour the cheesecake mixture into the prepared cupcake cases, coming up to just over half way.

For the roses, cut the apples in half, remove the core and thinly slice into half circles and place in a bowl with the water and lemon juice.  Microwave for around 1 minute until the slices soften and they are flexible.

Depending on how thick you have cut your slices, you need around 10-12 for each rose. Lay them out on a board, overlapping each slice with the next.  Sprinkle with a little cinnamon sugar and roll up from one end the other as tightly as possible.  Place into the waiting case, the rose will ‘bloom’ and fill the mini cheesecake.  Repeat until you have a rose in each one and top with a little sprinkle of the cinnamon sugar.

Bake at 180ºC/350ºF for around 25 minutes until the centres are just set and allow to fully cool.  Chill for at least 2 hours before serving.

Apple rose closeup

Winter Vegetable Bake with Cheese

/ Claire / Leave a comment

This winter vegetable bake is like a baked bubble and squeak.  Winter root vegetables, with cabbage and cheese makes for a delicious vegetarian dinner or a hearty side dish.

veg bake

I got the idea from a couple of sources – the first was when I returned from my honeymoon. We came back from warm, sunny shores to November in England. It was cold, wet, windy and after two weeks of well, not great food in the hotel, I was craving warm, stick to your ribs, comfort food and although I didn’t know it then, I was also pregnant with my second son.

The first day back after we had unpacked, I didn’t feel like cooking dinner, so we went out to a lovely little pub – The Otter, which is on the banks of the River Soar in Kegworth. There was a real fire burning in the hearth and I remember ordering a hearty stew that came with simply mashed vegetables (because it was the winter menu).  It was a lovely comforting meal and really hit the spot after all the Euromush we had been suffering in the hotel!  Although, to be fair the Greek salad and yogurt were great…!

The second source was when we went up to Yorkshire to visit relatives later that year on Boxing Day.  My brother in law made these sort of vegetable patties from the Christmas dinner leftovers.  They were great – actually the best part of the whole meal!  I never did find out how he made them, but pregnant and craving veggies, I decided to try and recreate them at home.

However, my version did not work!  They just fell to pieces as they were too soft.  I gave up and ended up shoving the whole lot in a baking dish, sticking it in the oven and cooking it like a casserole.  The result was a lovely vegetable bake and I decided to abandon the patties and make it that way from then on.

I have altered that recipe in that I now put slow cooked onions into it and I usually add cheese too.  The dish can be made from leftovers, but I normally cook the vegetables from scratch in order to make this.  The proportions are open to variation, but I normally do two thirds potato, to one third swede and carrots.  The veg can be boiled or steamed until tender.

Ingredients:
1 medium sized swede/rutabaga – peeled and cut into small dice
3 medium sized carrots – peeled and cut into small dice, the same size as the swede
5-6 medium sized potatoes – cut into chunks
1 small savoy cabbage or kale, thinly sliced
3 or 4 medium sized onions, peeled and cut into semi circles
Comte cheese – any cheese can be used, but the sweet, nutty flavour of Comte really compliments the sweet vegetables
Olive oil
Butter
Salt and pepper

Method:
Sauté the onions slowly in 1 tbs of olive oil and a tablespoon of butter with 1 tsp salt and freshly ground black pepper. Cook on a low heat for around 25 minutes until golden, soft and sweet.

While the onions are cooking, boil the carrots and swede/rutabaga in salted boiling water until the chunks are tender – around 25-30 minutes. In another saucepan, boil the potatoes in salted water until they are tender – around 15-20 minutes. I do them in separate pans as the potatoes cook more quickly.

Steam or boil the cabbage for around 3 minutes, drain and run under cold water to stop the cooking, refresh and set the colour. I sometimes do this in the potato water after I have taken out the potatoes to save on the washing up. Squeeze out excess water and set aside.

Drain and mash the potatoes. Then drain the carrots and swede and mash separately. I find they tend to hold onto the water, so once mashed, I stir them over the heat until some of the moisture has evaporated. This is just my preference.

Beat the potatoes, swede and carrots together using a wooden spoon with lots of butter and plenty black pepper, stir in the onions and cabbage and transfer to a large baking dish.

Sprinkle cheese over the top and using the wooden spoon, push in some of the cheese into the mixture so that you have little areas of melted cheese in the finished dish. Smooth out the top and bake at 180°C/350°F for around 30 minutes or until the top is golden, crisp and bubbling.

This is perfect as a side dish to any roast meat or fish and can be made ahead of time and baked when you want to serve it.

veg bake2