Here’s one of our favourite sorbets:
Category Archives: Vegetarian
Cheese and Onion Pie
I like this pie best as a cold-cutting pie. It’s a great addition to a buffet table. The recipe comes from my grandma, who lived in the North West of England – Lancashire and Westmorland – for many years.
You’ll see from the photo that the bottom’s a little bit soggy – hey, sometimes that happens; it could’ve done with a few more minutes in the oven, but so what, it tastes great.
The recipe’s really simple; I’ve tried it in the past with additions like egg in the filling, but this one’s the best, just cheese and onion like grandma used to make.
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Cheese Roulade with Mushroom and Spinach
A nice meat-free dish that’s been adapted to reduce the fat level. It’s by no means low-fat, but making the sauce without butter or oil has reduced the fat. It could be reduced further by using a lower-fat cheese and skimmed milk.
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Playing with Dough – Tomato and Chive Rolls
We have a small garden and grow tomatoes every summer. They taste so much better than shop-bought. We’ve got a few too many at the moment and as we’re out of bread it made sense to try and kill two birds with one stone. I was thinking along the lines of focaccia but then thought I’d have a play.
Continue reading Playing with Dough – Tomato and Chive RollsPâte sucrée (sweet shortcrust pastry)
In 2014, I wrote:
Mum and Dad celebrated their Diamond (60th) Wedding Anniversary in 2014. As well as sending them to a local restaurant for a meal, we decided to have an afternoon tea.
For me, afternoon tea is lots of small patisserie and cake items; oh, and some token sandwiches beforehand. I’m not one for scones and cream as part of ‘afternoon tea’; they’re for other occasions when they can be enjoyed on their own. Now, we’re not ‘The Savoy’, or even ‘The Great British Bake Off’, so I choose just a small selection of simple things: individual lemon meringue pies, fruit tarts, and meringues, along with cupcakes made by my daughter Hannah. The meringue uses up the egg whites left after the yolks have been used for the pastry and lemon meringue filling. Savouries were cucumber, egg, ham, and cheese sandwiches, some even had the crusts cut off!
‘Ere, how come when it’s lemon meringue it’s a pie, but when it’s fruit, it’s a tart?
Never mind, what I do know is that with pies or tarts, it’s all about the pastry – it needs to be strong enough not to fall apart but melt-in-the-mouth when you eat it. My method may not be the proper way but it works and results in a pastry case that’s more like shortbread than pastry.
Continue reading Pâte sucrée (sweet shortcrust pastry)
Mushroom and Kale Soup
I’ve never been really happy with using water instead of stock for vegetarian soup but vegetable stock powder invariably gives a celery flavour to the whole soup and to be honest, even when I’ve made vegetable stock I’ve never been really happy with it.
However, I think that I’ve found the answer, at least for mushroom soups. Dried Porcini absolutely transforms them. I’d never bothered with it until now because of the price. But recently I’ve been looking for things that help to lower my calorie intake and have been surprised, it’s not always the lower-calorie items that are best. For example, you get far more ‘bang for your buck’ from high-calorie Stilton than a reduced calorie cheese. Just try it, tiny pieces of stilton will add flavour whereas you’d need double the amount of a lower-calorie product. Well, when I was thinking along these lines, I also realised that the same applies to using very small amounts of expensive items and there’s no doubt that Porcini is expensive: £60 – £80 per kilo but if you only use 10gm it’s only 60p or about 10p per bowl.
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Sweet Chilli & Red Pepper Sauce
As long ago as 2007 I wrote about a chilli dipping sauce. I still use that recipe; it’s so quick to make.
This one is a proper sauce – as in not a thin dipping sauce. I’ve added red pepper to it as not everybody likes a sauce that grabs you by the throat. Feel free to reduce the red pepper and increase the chilli or add a couple of scotch bonnets.
Sweet Chilli and Red Pepper Sauce
110gm Water
50g Apple cider vinegar
¼ Red pepper – finely chopped – see note
1 Mild chilli pepper – finely chopped – see note
1 teaspoon Tomato ketchup
1 teaspoon Tomato puree
1 Garlic clove – finely chopped
¼ teaspoon Cayenne pepper
¼ teaspoon Paprika
50gm White sugar
1 dessertspoon Cornflour (Cornstarch)
a little water
Salt to taste, ¼ teaspoon is a good starting point
Weigh the sugar and set it aside.
Then weigh the water and apple cider vinegar and place them into a saucepan with everything except the sugar, cornflour and salt.
Cook the mixture in the pan until the pepper and chilli are nearly soft. Add the sugar and bring it back to a boil.
Mix a little water into the cornflour to make a loose paste. Add it to the pan whilst stirring – thicken it to the consistency you like – you may not need it all.
Let it cool for a while and then taste and season it. Liquidise it if you want a smooth sauce.
Note:
Adjust the amount and type of chilli and pepper to taste
Chilli Dipping Sauce
in 2007, I wrote about making a simple sweet chilli dipping sauce:
Apparently, it’s National Chilli Week from 26th November to 3 December 2007.
It’s a bit of a coincidence really, ‘cos on Saturday I experimented with making my own Sweet Chilli Sauce
I put about ½ cup sugar in a pan with ¼ cup water and ¼ cup vinegar. I added a finely chopped chilli and boiled it all for about 5 mins or so. This gave me a light dipping sauce with the chilli floating on top. I wanted the chilli mixed in the sauce and slightly more heat so I thickened it with arrowroot and added, in the absence of another fresh chilli, a bit of chilli powder. I also added some paprika (about ¼ teaspoon) for colour.
The sauce is better than I expected – It’s just like the stuff you buy.
I still use this recipe if I want a quick dipping sauce but for most things, I use this Sweet Chilli and Red Pepper Sauce.
Autumn Curd
Originally posted in 2010:
My grandma Young used to do a lot of fruit bottling and jam making; I suppose everyone who had fruit trees did in those days as they didn’t have freezers or even a fridge in grandma’s case. She used to make a jam that she called Marrow Cream; it was very much like lemon curd. I’ve since learned that it’s more commonly called marrow curd.
Continue reading Autumn CurdSamosas
From 2008.
A friend brought me some samosas from a shop on Green Lane Road, Leicester to try and they are superb. Mind you, the tamarind dip which accompanied them about blew my brains out!
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