Tomato, ham and tortelloni soup

This whole Christmas business is seriously cutting into my blogging time. I should have posted this yesterday, but it's been a bit crazy. There's so much to to do, get arranged, last minute online shopping and then that wait to see whether things will make it in time or not. But there's still plenty of time until Christmas, you say. Not quite, as I'm flying back home in just six short days, woop woop!! So anything I need to get arranged while still at home needs to happen very soon. And I won't be able to craft while away, so I am trying very hard to build up a bit of a buffer on the card blog. And I have tried to get all the Christmas presents sorted. What did people do before online shopping?? And I've been trying to find a dress I can fit into as I'm going to my friend's PhD party. I have to admit squeezing into any of my clothes is a bit of a problem at the moment, and I promise I will start living a healthy life soon. After I've eaten all the Christmas goodies... See why I'm having a problem over here? It's called denial!!

I can't wait to get home. Five more days in the office, and then I am looking forward to three weeks of Christmas holiday! I can't remember when I would have had three weeks off work. I look forward to spending time with my family, although my sister won't be able to join us so there will certainly be something important missing. But I am looking forward to see family and friends. I'm especially looking forward to my friend's PhD party, I will get to see so many old colleagues and friends I haven't seen in ages.

From time to time I do eat something resembling healthy food. This tortelloni soup I recently made was really delicious. I wanted to try making a non-vegetarian version of this great tortelloni soup I made a while ago. The other day The Culinary Consultant bought a pack of ham and sausage tortelloni, so I thought why not make a version with some ham.

Tomato, lenti and ham tortelloni soup (serves 4-6): 1 tbsp olive oil
2 onions
2 stalks of celery
2 carrots
1 kg tomatoes (or two cans of tinned tomatoes)
1 l  chicken stock
1 cup lentils
200 g spinch
200 g ham
400 g ham and sausage tortelloni
salt and pepper to taste

The howto:
Finely chop the onions, celery and carrots. Heat oil in a large saucepan, and add onions, celery and carrots. Cook for 10 minutes. Add the tomatoes and chicken stock and lentils. Cook for another 10 minutes until the lentils are done. Add the spinach and ham. Add the tortelloni and cook as per instructions on the pack. Taste and add salt or pepper as required. Serve with grated cheese sprinkled on top.

The verdict:
I really liked the vegetarian version of the soup. And I think I liked this version even more. You can replace the lentils with beans if you wish, but I happened to have lentils so I used them. The soup has a great flavour from the tomatoes and the ham. Actually, thinking of it, this would be a perfect recipe for leftover Christmas ham. 

Courgette lasagne

I've been having some very strange dreams lately. I have been dreaming about people who have not been part of my life for a long time. A former colleague, who wanted me to give a talk about physics which I didn't understand anything about. Another night I dreamed about some old friends who were visiting me in my home. But my home wasn't my home, it was some other place. And then some other people showed up who were supposed to be my friends but I didn't know their names, so I couldn't introduce them to the friends who were already there. 

I think my vivid and restless dreams are because we have been watching Breaking Bad right before going to bed. I can't wait to finish the last few episodes, to get it over and done with. I don't want to watch anything so depressing and scary anymore. From now on, I will only watch period dramas and baking shows. Seriously, the older I get, the less violence and psychological drama I can take. I don't watch much TV anyways as I think it's mostly a waste of time. So if I decide to waste my time doing nothing at all but staring at yet another screen, I want it to make me all warm, fuzzy and happy. I keep re-watching my old Gilmore Girls, because they just don't make TV like that anymore.

The other day I was going to make a regular veggie lasagne as I have blogged about here. I popped out to the greenhouse to pick some tomatoes for the tomato sauce I spotted a few giant courgettes. So I thought, why on earth would I use pasta when I have these lovely courgettes instead. 

For me lasagne is all about the sauces. If you are going through the trouble to make lasagne, you want to do it right. And although making the sauces from scratch yourself takes some time, it's not that much work really. It's mostly about the sauces just bubbling away on their own while you can prepare the rest of the veg so you don't even waste any time. This makes a big batch, but the lasagne freezes well. I like to freeze it in serving sized portions and take with me to work for lunch.

Veggie lasagna (serves 8-10):

For the tomato sauce:

Tomatoes

6  cloves of garlic

1 onion

ground black pepper

2 bay leaves

For the bechamel sauce:

1 litre whole milk

1/2 onion

10 peppercorns

2 bay leaves

80 g butter

80 g flour

black pepper (and salt) to taste

olive oil spray

4 sweet peppers

1 onion

250 g kale

1 courgette

200 g feta cheese

6 lasagne sheets

(grated cheese or torn mozzarella for topping)

The howto:

Start by preparing the tomato and bechamel sauce. For the tomato sauce, chop tomatoes into quarters and remove the hard stems. Put the tomatoes in a large saucepan along with the bay leaves, black pepper and finely chopped garlic and onion. Bring slowly to a boil, and you will see the tomatoes start to give off liquid when heating up. Let cook for about an hour and remove from the heat. You can prepare the tomato sauce on the day before, or even freeze it for use later. For the bechamel, place the milk, roughly chopped onion, pepper and bay leaves in a large saucepan and slowly bring to a boil. When the milk has boiled, sieve it and put to the side. In a large saucepan melt the butter, and add the flour to form a thick paste. Let the paste cook for a minute or two and start adding the milk. Add milk 1/2 cup at a time, making sure you stir constantly with a balloon whisk to avoid any lumps from forming. Just be patient and keep adding milk a little at a time, stirring vigorously between additions and you will be rewarded with a beautiful, smooth, silky sauce. Season with salt and black pepper.

While preparing the sauces, roast the peppers. Preheat oven to 225 degrees and roughly chop peppers (I usually chop peppers into 6 big chunks). Place on an oven tray and lightly spray with olive oil. Roast for about 30 minutes, or until small dark patches start to appear on the pepper skins. Remove from oven and let cool. Finely slice the onion and roughly chop kale. Slice the courgette thinly. Lower the oven temperature to 200 degrees C. To assemble, start by placing sliced courgettes in a large oven proof dish. Top with half of the peppers, kale and feta cheese as well as tomato sauce and about a third of the bechamel. Add another layer of courgettes, peppers, kale, feta and sauces, and add a sprinkle of ground black pepper (and salt if you want to although the feta has a lot of salt, so I didn't find it necessary to add any salt). For the last layer, add the lasagne sheets and top with the remaining bechamel sauce (and grated cheese if using). Cook for about an hour, or until golden brown and bubbling. 

The verdict:

This was simply delicious. It does make such a difference to make everything from scratch yourself, and I do appreciate how lucky I am to be able to walk out to the greenhouse to pick the most amazingly sweet tomatoes (although that happiness doesn't last much longer as tomato season is drawing to a close soon). If you want to make it even healthier, you could leave out the cheese and lasagne noodles and replace with more courgette slices. I have to admit the carboholic in me likes to have at least that one layer of pasta on top, with a thick layer of bechamel sauce and some cheese. It just makes the whole thing so much more delicious. Also, the roasted peppers are absolutely brilliant. I cooked this along with a meat lasagne for the Culinary Consultant, and when tasting them both side by side I can honestly say I preferred the veggie one. 

Stuffed marrow

After last week's carb feast I thought it might be time for somewhat more wholesome recipes this week. And turns out I didn't even have to lift a finger to make this happen!

This week the contents (well, the food an pictures, if not the actual text) of InvisiblePinkFood are courtesy of the Culinary Consultant. The other day, I came home from work to these stuffed marrows waiting for me. I was a bit skeptical as I have never managed to cook anything very delicious from marrows. But looks like the Culinary Consultant had a bit more talent in the marrow department than I did, as they turned out fantastic. He even grew the marrow himself! This recipe is modified from BBC Good Food recipe for Spanish Stuffed Marrow.

Stuffed marrow (serves 4-6):
1 big marrow
100 g chorizo
1 onion
4 cloves of garlic
330 g sausage meat
1 tsp sweet smoked paprika
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp mixed herbs
1 can of chopped tomatoes
1 sweet pepper
100 g grated cheese (we used a mix of cheddar and Red Leicester)

The howto: 
Preheat oven to 200 degrees C (400 degrees F). Cut the marrow in half lengthways and scoop out the middle (see below), and cut into serving sizes. Our giant marrow made six servings. Put the halves in a large oven proof dish. 

Chop onion, chorizo and sweet pepper, finely chop garlic. In a frying pan, cook the chorizo until it starts to release fat. Add onion, garlic, sausage meat, spices and herbs and use a spatula to break up the sausage meat while it cooks. After about five minutes, add tomatoes and peppers and cook for 15-20 minutes. 

Spoon the filling onto the marrow halves, cover with foil and bake for 30-40 minutes depending on the size of your marrow. The marrow should start to soften. Our marrow was really big and dense and needed even more time to cook. Sprinkle with cheese and return to the oven for 10 minutes until the cheese is golden. 

The verdict:
When I heard the dinner was going to be stuffed marrow I thought "meeeh". I honestly thought this would be a really boring and somewhat soggy dish. I could not have been more wrong. I know they say food always tastes better if it's cooked by someone else, but in this case that was more than true. The marrow was still a great texture, not mushy at all. I was also surprised that it actually tasted really good, it had a mild but somewhat nutty flavour. Must be all the love that has gone into growing it... And the filling was so full of flavour, just a perfect pinch of heat, tasty chorizo and sausage and a nice final touch from the cheese. If you have marrows but not an idea what to do with them, this is the perfect solution. I think it's worth a try to see if you could scoop out the marrow, cut it into serving size pieces and freeze it for use later. I can't see why it wouldn't work, although the marrow might go a bit soggy after defrosting it, at least courgette does but the marrow does seem to be a bit more compact to start with so it might just work.

When life gives you courgettes - make ratatouille

 

When I came home from holiday, I found two bad boys waiting for me in the fridge. And by that I mean two humongous courgettes. What else is a girl to do than make ratatouille? Also, eating a bit lighter is a great idea after my one week of all inclusive all day buffet holiday... We had hardly finished breakfast (you know, just a bit of scrambled eggs and bacon, maybe a fried egg as well, followed by a round of croissants and finished off with some donuts, slices of pineapple and watermelon) when it was lunchtime (although I admit we didn't make it to lunch every day as we were still digesting breakfast). And then came dinnertime with a full buffet of salads, cold cut meats, grilled fish and meats with all sorts of sides you could imagine, maybe a bit of pizza on the side, then the light round of cheese and crackers followed by dessert of fruits and small cakes and maybe to finish, you know just to cool off a bit, some chocolate ice cream with chocolate syrup and sprinkles). All this to keep us fuelled for a busy day of lying on the beach, reading a book or maybe even walking along the beach with our toes in the wet sand. But that is all over now. So hence the need for a bit of ratatouille. And what could be better now that the garden is starting to produce some ratatouille ingredients. Looking at the number of courgette plants, I better start coming up with some more recipes soon.

Apparently the secret to a good ratatouille (according to Delia, and who am I to argue) is that your veggies need to be chopped into large enough chunks so they don't turn into mush when cooking, but retain their shape. I loosely used Delia's ratatouille recipe as a rough guide, although I did make some alterations, and used whatever veggies I happened to have around. This makes quite a big batch, so we had some for dinner, I popped a bit in the freezer and took some with me to work for lunch.

InvisiblePinkRatatouille (serves 4-6):
1 large courgette
2 medium aubergines
13 medium tomatoes (because that's what I happened to have in the fridge)
2 onions
2 cloves of garlic
1 red pepper
1 yellow pepper
2 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper
fresh thyme and basil
3 tbsp tomato puree

The howto:
Roughly cut your courgette and aubergines into large chunks, place into a colander, sprinkle generously with salt, and mix. Weigh them down with a few plates or something else appropriate and leave for an hour or two to drain. This will remove the bitter taste from the aubergines, and also remove liquid to keep the ratatouille from becoming soggy. In the meanwhile, peel the skins of the tomatoes. This is easiest if you score a little cross on the bottom of the tomato with a sharp knife, then dip the tomato in cooking water for about 30 seconds or so, and then submerge in ice cold water. You can then easily peel off the skin. Remove the tomato seeds, and cut the tomato flesh into rough chunks (I cut them in half, removed the seeds and left them that size). Also, roughly chop your onions into chunks, as well as the peppers. Finely chop the garlic.

When the courgettes and aubergines have drained, rinse off the salt in cold water, and pat them dry with a clean towel or kitchen roll. Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan to medium heat and add the onions. Cook the onion until starting to soften. Then add the chopped garlic and cook for another minute or so. Add the courgettes and aubergines along with chopped thyme and basil (I just eyeballed it, but I think I used about 2 tbsp of fresh finely chopped basil ann 1 tbsp fresh thyme leaves) with a bit of salt and pepper. Let cook for about 10 minutes. Add the red peppers and tomatoes, add the tomato puree, give it a good stir and let cook for another 10-15 minutes. The veggies should not be mushy, but keep their colour and shape, and the cooking time will depend on the size of your veggie chunks. Taste and adjust salt and pepper. I rarely use salt in my food, but here I think it helps bring out the flavour of the veg. Serve as a side with meat, or as a veggie main on it's own.

The verdict:
I know ratatouille purists will say you shouldn't put tomato puree in it, and I'm not sure if these are the correct proportions of ingredients. But it turned out really nice, and it was even better the next day. I used quite a bit of thyme, so if you are not a huge fan, just reduce the amount a bit. I know some ratatouille recipes add sugar, but I don't think it was needed. This is such a simple, healthy and beautifully colourful food, and you can adjust it to include/exclude whichever veggies you like/have in the garden.

Salmon and egg brunch salad

I have been wondering whether there is more traffic accidents on Friday than on any other day. At least based on my limited experience of living out in the countryside and driving to work for the last seven or eight months or so, it seems that on Fridays there is always an accident somewhere along my route. And with the weight of traffic being much heavier on Fridays anyways, it makes the trip home last forever. It is so frustrating to see all the routes turn red in an instant on Google Maps when people fill up the alternative routes once the main dual carriageway is blocked. The road infrastructure in this country is so incapable of sustaining the weight of traffic. We will have a brand new A14 in say 10 years or so, but it isn't much comfort right at this minute when the only option to get to work in a sensible time is leave home no later than 6.20 am in the morning. And even at that time I rarely get to do 70 on the A14 for long stretches at a time. 

Traffic has become one of my pet peeves, how people are so hell-bent on "Me, Me, Me, I need to get through here quickly" and no thought on the big picture of how your behaviour affects the traffic flow in general. When I lived in Cambridge and could walk everywhere I barely noticed the traffic jams, although they were always there. But they didn't touch my life in any way. Now, it's just such a gamble every time I look at Google Maps before leaving work. Is that red stretch on my route bad enough that I should take the alternative, longer route? I used to try and logically plan my choices, but I have learned that here the traffic situations change in an instant and looking at maps before leaving work amounts to no good, as by the time I have reached the car park there is another accident out there somewhere and another route is blocked. People, be careful out there! Everyone gets home quicker if we have some patience and don't do idiotic and stupid manoeuvres that cause high risk situations to occur. Ok, stepping off the soap box now. But promise me you will drive carefully!!! 

Ok, on to the main star of today's pos. This salad is a great healthier alternative to your usual salmon and poached egg muffin. Perfect for a delicious lunch or weekend brunch. Loads of flavour, healthy fats and protein along with several of your five a day. As easy to make for one, or scale up and make for a bigger party.

Salmon salad (for one):
big handful of mixed greens (I included spinach)
cucumber, chopped into sticks
handful of cherry or plum tomatoes
2 slices of smoked salmon
1 boiled egg
2 tbsp mozzarella pearls

For the dressing:
1/2 tbsp cider vinegar
1/2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1/2 tbsp finely chopped dill and chives
black pepper

The howto:
Pile all salad ingredients onto a plate. Mix the ingredients for the dressing, pour over the salad. All done! Can food get any faster than this?

The verdict:
I like to make my salads with lots of things in them. The lettuce and cucumber are there just for the background whereas the main stars of the show are always something delicious like chicken or smoked salmon, and some cheese too from time to time. Salmon and egg is one of my favourite salad flavour combinations. Healthy fats from the fish and lots of protein from the egg. Also, the right way to eat a salad is to eat the lettuce and cucumber first, and then leave all the goodies to finish with. I should maybe start assembling the salads upside down, with all the filling at the bottom and the greens on the top to make it easier to eat in my preferred way... Although that wouldn't make a very pretty photo now would it? 

BLT waffles

What a glorious weekend we have had, I hope it has been as lovely for you wherever you are. I enjoyed the sun with a glass of ice cold Pimms in my hand. I really like the new blackberry and elderflower flavour. Our garden is perfect for slouching in the sun as it gets sunlight pretty much all through the day, although I did have to move into the shade of the plum tree for a while when it got a bit too hot for my delicate tastes.

We also had our first al fresco brunch on Saturday with the Culinary Consultant, enjoying these amazing BLT waffles. My family will come and visit in July, so I have been working very hard (what a chore it is, poor me!) to identify acceptable brunch recipes. So far I have found way too many, and this one will go onto the ever growing list. And there was another great one this weekend as well, watch this space...

Brunch in the garden

On a completely different note, am I the only person who can't understand why computer games have to be so incredibly loud? Most of the sound effects are just soooo annoying. I can't understand how the other inhabitant in this house can stand them for hours and hours on end. Either the sound of fighting, shooting and grunting or car chases and sirens. Luckily the house is large enough so there are places to go where the noise doesn't follow (perchance the craft room...), but I can't imagine listening to it non-stop for two days. Just goes to show the male brain is wired differently.

Today's recipe for our al fresco brunch is from Joy The Baker, and the photos over there are just amazing so pop over and have a look! As soon as I saw this recipe, I knew Claude (the waffle maker, aka. the love of my life) would come out of the closet this weekend. But even with my less impressive photos, these waffles are still amazing. I adore a good weekend brunch, usually we go and get the weekly grocery shop done and then I make something delicious for us to eat and get the weekend started for real.

Cheddar and buttermilk BLT waffles (makes 6):
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
pinch of black pepper
1 tbsp sugar
1/3 cup (75 g) melted unsalted butter
2 large eggs
1 1/4 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup grated cheddar (I added a few tbsp of grated parmesan as well)

For the sandwiches:
Mayonnaise (I used a cracked pepper and garlic mayonnaise)
Tomatoes
Lettuce
Cooked bacon

The howto:
Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl. In another bowl, mix the butter, eggs and buttermilk. Mix all ingredients together and add the cheese. Or if you are lazy like me, mix all the ingredients together in one bowl, seemed to work well enough and saves time and washing up. 

Let the batter rest while the waffle maker is heating up. Cook according to instructions. For me that meant six minutes on 2/3 of the maximum heat. The batter makes six large waffles. Keep the waffles hot in the oven while cooking the rest of them. While the waffles are cooking, cook the bacon either in the oven or in a pan depending on your preference.
I didn't make proper waffle "sandwiches", just topped the waffles with mayonnaise, tomato, lettuce straight from our own greenhouse and a few slices of bacon.

The verdict:
This waffle recipe was really great. It has enough butter to give the waffles that slightly crispy crust after you let them rest for a minute or two on a wire rack after cooking. But there isn't too much butter to make them too buttery. (As a sideline, why on earth do all US recipes give butter measurements in cups? Would you really just melt a random amount of butter and then measure up 1/3 cup? I wouldn't! I certainly want to have my butter measures in weight, not volume to avoid any waste of perfectly good butter). The cheddar brings loads of flavour. I think out of all the savoury waffles I have made, so far these are my favourites. I also love BLTs so no wonder I loved this brunch. They went down a treat with the Culinary Consultant as well. I guess you could always add a bit of scrambled egg or an egg sunny side up if you wanted, but for us this was a substantial enough brunch on it's own. I popped a few of the leftover waffles in the freezer and took the last leftover waffle to work and enjoyed as my Monday morning breakfast treat. It sure made the start of the week better!

Chimichurri tomato salad with halloumi

It's been a while since my last post. It wasn't supposed to be that long... Life got a bit hectic this week. All good hectic, but no time for crafting, cooking or blogging. I saw friends, did pilates, and I can't even remember what I did on Tuesday and why I didn't have time to blog then, but it was something I'm sure. I was so tired last night I couldn't even be bothered to plan the weekend's cooking so we are going to have roast chicken this weekend. Again. Sigh. I am a failure as a food blogger! However, this morning I had a browse through the blogosphere and found this amazing recipe for chimichurri tomato salad on Tartelette. It looked so amazing that I had to try it out immediately!

Our own tomato season is still far away, although the tomato plants in the greenhouse are growing at lighting speed and a few flowers have already been spotted. Luckily the tomatoes in the grocery store have started to look red instead of that pale orange-y colour they have been all winter. So I bought myself a bunch of tomatoes and picked the herbs for the chimichurri right out of my own garden for this refreshing salad which is exploding with taste. The original recipe consists of the salad served with battered halloumi. I thougth I would keep it a bit healthier and just serve the halloumi lightly grilled without the panko crust, but hop over to the original blog post for a look for the crusted alternative.

Chimichurri tomato salad with halloumi (serves 2 as main or 4 as appetizer):
For the chimichurri:
1 cup parsley
1 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
4 cloves of garlic
1/3 cup chives
juice of one lemon
1/4 cup olive oil

For the salad:
1 lb (450 g) tomatoes
1/4 to 1/3 cup chimichurri
1/2 red onion
1 cup micro greens
1 lb (450 g) halloumi

The howto:
Take all the ingredients for the chimichurri and blitz them in a food processor until finely chopped. For the salad, slice the tomatoes and finely slice the onion. Mix all ingredients apart from the halloumi. Slice the halloumi into thick slices and pan fry over medium heat for a few minutes per side until it has turned golden. Serve immediately.

The verdict:
This is a super easy and quick salad. I think the chimichurri which is exploding with flavours from the parsley, chives and garlic goes really well with the salty halloumi. I served the salad with a bit of bacon on the side as well to appease the meat-eater in the house (and we had a few slices of bacon which needed using up so I thought why not). I was afraid that the combination of the salty bacon and halloumi would be to much, but it was well balanced by the strong flavours of the chimichurri and the sweet tomatoes. I can't wait to make this from my own tomatoes, which will be even more sweeter than the store bought ones. 

I have to admit, the measures in the recipe above are directly from the Tartlette recipe. When I made my salad, I couldn't be bothered to measure anything, just used what I thought would be a good amount of the ingredients and made a serving for two (I used 3 big red tomatoes and 4 medium sized yellow tomatoes, 2 cloves of garlic, 125 g halloumi and the rest of the ingredients to taste). If you have any chimichurri left after making the salad, it keeps for a day or two in the fridge and goes great with grilled beef

.

Veggie lasagna

This week I decided to be a vegetarian. Not for any other reason that just because. I came across this post about being vegetarian for a month on A Cup of Jo, one of the blogs I'm following. I think the Culinary Consultant would rebel if I tried to introduce a month of vegetarianism in this house, but I decided he can put up with it for a week. 

I don't have an ethical problem with eating meat. I believe we need quite a bit of protein in our diet to cut out carbs, and meat is great for that. That should of course include a variety of white meat, fish and some read meat as well. Of course buying meat from animals who have lived a happy life and whose lives have been ended in the most humane way possible is always preferable over meat from intensely farmed animals. But it's also a balancing act with the financial constraints. Not a question I want to go into too much detail as I know I don't always practice what I preach or at least what I would prefer.

So this week, just to challenge myself to make new recipes, I went veggie. I tend to make the same old things over and over, and it was time to get new flavours into my food. And eating more veggies can never be bad for you. So I started with this delicious vegetarian lasagne which was an amalgamation of some recipes I've seen online and my own imagination. It does involve a bit of work with preparing sauced and veggies, but it's definitely worth the effort! Also, I would love to know how all the "real" food bloggers always manage to cut up their lasagne into these perfectly symmetrical square pieces which looks so great on the plate. Mine just ends up in a big sloppy pile no matter what I try to do. Oh well, it tastes great nonetheless.

Veggie lasagna (serves 6-8):
Tomato sauce:
about 20 tomatoes (or 2 jars of tinned tomatoes)
2 cloves of garlic
one sprig of rosemary
1 tbsp dried oregano
2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
1 dried chilli (or more, depending on preference)
1 bay leaf
a pinch of sugar
salt and black pepper

Bechamel sauce from 1 litre of milk, see here for instructions

For the filling:
4 sweet peppers
4 onions (1 used 1 red and 3 yellow onions)
2 cups curly kale
garlic shoots (you know the greens that grow when you plant garlic cloves in the ground. If you don't have garlics growing in your garden, substitute with chives)
lasagna sheets
150 g mature cheddar

The howto:
Start by preparing the tomato sauce and Bechamel. The instructions can be found here. For the tomato sauce, if using fresh tomatoes, blanch and peel. If using frozen tomatoes (like I did), let them semi-thaw, at which stage it's easy to take out the hard green bit and peel off the skin. Put all the ingredients in a large saucepan and cook until desired consistency (i.e. not too runny), with my frozen tomatoes this took about 40 minutes of cooking without a lid.

While the sauces are cooking, chop the sweet peppers into large chunks, lightly coat in olive oil and roast in a 225 degree oven for about 35-40 minutes. Slice the onions and cook in a bit of olive oil in a frying pan until starting to soften. Grate the cheese.

Start by spreading a bit of Bechamel in the bottom of a oven proof dish, and top with lasagne sheets. Add a layer of Bechamel, half of the tomato sauce, half of the onions, peppers and kale. Add some chopped garlic shoots and some cheese. Add another layer of lasagne sheets and build an identical layer to the first one. Top with a final layer of pasta and pour the rest of the Bechamel on top and sprinkle grated cheese on top. Cook in a 200 degree oven for an hour until golden and bubbly.

The verdict:
I am so happy this lasagne turned out to be full of flavours and really delicious. The Culinary Consultant thought it wasn't too bad given the circumstance (i.e. the lack of dead animal). I have no qualms about making this again, to me it was at least as good as a regular lasagne, possibly even better. If you are going to make home made lasagne, it's without a doubt worth making your own Bechamel and tomato sauce, it just brings that extra flavour to it and is worth every extra minute you spend on cooking. Seriously, you have to try this. I suspected it would be a decent meal, but it was just amazing, the favours were so good. I rarely get completely overwhelmed by my own creations, but this was seriously good. 

Tomato soup

Some days you just need a lovely and comforting bowl of hot soup. I am still not rid of my stubborn cold. Yesterday also turned out to be a day when life once again sent a reminder of how sudden things change without any warning. Life takes you on weird, winding paths, and sometimes it's very hard to see any reason for why things turn out like they do.
Talking about comforting soups, if you have been reading my blog for a while, you could not miss the fact that we had quite a tomato crop this summer. I just couldn't believe how much tomatoes our plants produced. However, as we only moved in in July, the wonderful previous owners grew the tomato plants and all we had to do was harvest the wonderful orbs of red yummyness. During high tomato season they matured so quickly that all I could do was to freeze them whole as I just didn't have time to make tomato sauce every evening after getting home from work, particularly as we were working on the Bachelor pad most evenings during last year's harvest season. And now I have the wonderful task of using up all that produce from our own garden. The great thing about the frozen tomatoes is that when they defrost, the skin is really easy to pop off without having to go through the time consuming process of blanching. 

My sister discovered this tomato soup recipe on the BBC good food website and encouraged me to try it. It's basic and doesn't have any fancy ingredients but it will have a great flavour, particularly if you will have access to really ripe, sweet tomatoes. It makes a great, affordable lunch full of flavour and it's healthy too. Add some (home baked) bread and it makes a perfect lunch.

Tomato soup (serves 4):
1-1 1/4 kg tomatoes
1 onion
1 carrot
1 celery stick
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp tomato puree
black pepper
a good pinch of sugar
2 bay leaves
1.2 litres (2 pints) vegetable stock (or less if tomatoes produce a lot of liquid)

The howto:
Prepare the tomatoes by chopping them in quarters and removing the cores. Then chop the onion, carrot and celery. Heat olive oil in a large saucepan, and sauté the chopped onion, carrot and celery. Cook until the vegetables start to soften a bit, about 10 minutes on medium heat. Add the tomato puree and give the vegetables a stir before adding the tomatoes, sugar, black pepper and bay leaves. Cook for about 10 minutes until the tomatoes soften. Add vegetable stock, if there is a lot of liquid from the tomatoes (my frozen tomatoes produce more liquid than fresh tomatoes, so I don't add very much stock at all, just a stock cube and a splash of water). Cook for about 25 minutes. Puree with a handheld blender or liquidizer, and season with either salt, sugar or pepper according to taste. Serve while hot or freeze in individual servings. 

The verdict:
I love the simple favours of this soup. When you cook with tomatoes, you should always add a bit of sugar to balance the flavours. As I'm using my own tomatoes, this soup actually cost next to nothing. It is the perfect way to use the frozen whole tomatoes, as they get a bit sloppy when they defrost. I prefer to handle them when half thawed, it's easy to peel off the skin and cut out the hard stem while they are still frosty, once completely thawed they are a bit challenging to work with. You can blanch the tomatoes or just leave the skins on, as the blending will get rid of any unpleasant bits of tomato skin. 

A small salad and big frustration

I try really hard to focus on all the good things in life. Right now I have so much to be happy about. The sun is shining, I will soon (soon is a relative concept) be in my own home, have my own kitchen, my own garden and my own craft room. Ok, so the home, kitchen and garden obviously are only half mine, but what I mean is that they are ours, but it's so annoying when people speak 'we' talk all the time. Anyhows. Today I just have to vent. I am so frustrated I seriously don't know whether to laugh or cry. I know from time to time you get bad customer service, and even the most recommended companies will have some dissatisfied customers. So usually when I get bad service I just try to get over it. But this just broke the camel's back. So the story goes like this...

We were supposed to pay our deposit (10%) of the house on Friday. I tried, but my online bank will only allow me to transfer a certain amount of money per day, which is a bit less than the deposit. So I transferred that on Friday, thinking I will transfer the remaining small sum on Saturday and be done with it. Now, on Monday evening, I still can't use my online bank as it claims I'm going over my daily allowed limit. I have made at least 5 phone calls to Natwest, and today I have been chatting to their advisor for over an hour. The result of all of this? I was told there is nothing they can do, and hopefully it would all clear for tomorrow. Which was the same I was told on Sunday, and it hadn't cleared this morning, so I'm not all too hopeful. But the worst thing? When I suggested to the online "customer service" person (more like customer non-service) that it's a bit frustrating that my online bank won't actually allow me to do any banking she hung up on me. Or whatever the chat equivalent to hanging up on someone is. Good thing we have an appointment with another bank later in the week, we were going over there to chat about opening a joint account, but seems like right now not only will there be a joint account, I will also move my business over there from CrapWest. I'm just so incredibly frustrated as this again sets back all the business with the house. The moral of the story? Never ever sign up with Natwest, they are useless.

But then onto nicer things. The sun is shining, and that is great (as long as you aren't in a train for many hours without air conditioning). We have finally got our little sliver of summer over here on the godforgotten island. I just hope this is how August will be, so that I get maximum benefit of my new garden. Assuming we have been able to pay the rest of the deposit and actually been able to move. Whoops, let my mind get all negative again, bad bad mind! I have certainly noticed that the hot weather has affected my appetite, I crave crisps and ice cold coke (as in coca-cola, just making a point...) and can't even think about eating proper hot food. Did you check out my recent tzatziki and potato salad hybrid? Well, this is another ridiculously simple salad which you could prepare as a side for a barbecue, which is exactly what I did. 

Broccoli and tomato side salad (serves 3-4):
1/2 head of broccoli
2 large tomatoes
1/2 small red onion
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1/2 tsp black pepper

The howto:
Steam the broccoli until slightly softened but still al dente (really, don't let it go soft, you want it to be nice and crisp and not soggy at all). Chop to desired consistency. Also chop the tomatoes, and finely chop the onion. Mix olive oil, balsamic and pepper, and toss with the salad. I'm pretty sure adding a herb like parsley or coriander would be really good, too!

The verdict:
Obviously, this is not the most original recipe out there. But it was a really nice side with all of the other things we had going. BBQd chicken, sweet corn and sweet potato. The salad was crunchy and refreshing. I made it a few hours ahead to give it some time to marinate, I think the onion is nicer that way when it has a bit of time to absorb the oil and vinegar. I also warmly recommend trying the mango-mayo salsa type sauce with you BBQ, it's really nice with chicken, and would probably go great with pork as well.

Card of the day:
This is yet another one from the archives as I'm still in crafting exile. I expect I will start dreaming about crafting any night now. I'm also worried because the only outlet to my crafting needs is buying more crafting stuff on ebay. Which I really can't afford... And I'm afraid soon I'll go crazy with the new Stampin' Up catalogue as well. But until then, maybe looking at this picture will sooth my soul a bit. Or not. 

These are four cards I made using Tim Holtz distress inks and the Kanban butterflies stamp. I stamped using different coloured inks and markers: the top left stamped using Walnut stain and embossed using clear embossing powder, the top right one Vintage Photo for the text and markers Barn Door, Victorian Velvet and Spiced Marmelade for the butterflies, bottom left text using Antique Linen for the text and Broken China, Bundled Sage and Victorian Velvet markers for the butterflies, bottom right was stamped using Tim Holtz clear embossing ink and clear embossing powder. For the backgrounds, I used different distress inks and applied with blending foam and an applicator tool for the backgrounds as follows: top left: Worn Lipstick, Spiced Marmelade, Peeled Paint and Vintage Photo around the edges, top right Worn Lipstick and bottom right is the same as the top left with some Broken China thrown in there for good measure. The matting was done using papers from the Dovecraft Back To Basics III pack, some which I stamped on using the Hero Arts Flourish stamp. The brown paper on the bottom right one is from my stash. The sentiments are from my trusty Hobbycraft General Sentiments set, apart from the Big Day! which is from another set which I can't identify at the moment. I finished by adding some gems and ended up with quite a summery set of cards.

Posted with Blogsy

Emergent lentil and tomato soup

Emergence. That phenomenon where the whole is more than the sum of it's parts. Like putting together two people who are used to be alone. In my recent opinion, that is certainly emergent. Or maybe an emergency?

This post is obviously about something much more important than relationships. It's about a truly amazing soup I just created. Or maybe it's more correct to say the twisted recesses of my brain gave birth to this soup. It's basically the love child of my two favourite soups, lentil curry soup and Moroccan tomato and chickpea soup. I so love lentils. And chickpeas. And although I'm not a big fan of spicy food, I do like the somewhat sweeter hotness of harissa compared to chilli paste. And I love tomatoes. So I thought, why not try to marry these two soups into a over the top, everything you could ever want, tomato-chickpea-lentil-harissa extravaganza. And it turns out the result is very much more than the sum of it's parts.

Emergent soup (serves 4-5):
15 g extra virgin coconut oil
1 tbsp ground ginger
2 tsp harissa paste (gives a rather mild hotness, can be increased depending on taste)
2 onions, chopped
1 clove of garlic finely chopped (can be increased)
3 carrots, sliced
3 stalks of celery, sliced
1 can of chickpeas (380 g, 230 g drained weight)
500 g tomato passata with garlic and herbs (you can use regular passata or chopped tomatoes, but in that case add 2 more cloves of garlic and a teaspoon (each) of dried oregano, basil and parsley)
2 cups (500 ml) water
1 vegetable stock cube
120 g (3/4 cups) split red lentils
500 g diced turkey thigh (can be replaced by chicken, or omitted)

One serving (a quarter of the recipe, which results in a rather generous serving with lots of meat) contains 513 kcal, 40 g protein, 37 g carbs (of which 9 g sugars) and 20 g fat. Ok, so that's quite a big serving, but feel free to have a smaller one, and don't judge me please. I'm still sticking to my 1200 kcal diet even when eating this!

The howto:
Chop and slice the onions, carrots, celery and garlic. In a big saucepan, heat up the coconut oil. Add the ginger and harissa and cook for 2-3 minutes while stirring. Reduce heat to medium, and add onions and garlic. Mix with the spices in the saucepan, and let cook for a few minutes, until translucent. Add carrots and celery, mix and let cook for five minutes. Add the rest of the ingredients (the chickpeas with the liquid included), cover with a lid and let slowly cook for 45-50 minutes.

The verdict:
I'm not very good at creating recipes of my own, I like to steal other people's ideas and then slightly fine tune them to fit my tastes. Maybe I'm not a very imaginative person. And I'm pretty sure there will be another lentil, chickpea, tomato and turkey soup out there, but I don't want to google it because I will think of this as my very own recipe. Which I'm immensely proud of! It turned out to be one of the best soups I've ever had. I might obviously be a bit biased in my evaluation, but trust me, it was really, really good.

The harissa brings a nice warmth to the soup, and the tomato passata a wonderful smoothness along with the taste of oregano, a herb I haven't used in a long time, and almost forgotten how good it is. And the chickpeas. Oh, the chickpeas. I love biting into one of those babies, they are just so incredibly good. And that smooth texture feels so lovely as well. 

I decided to use turkey instead of chicken simply because the turkey thigh was quite cheap, only £2.50 for a 500 g pack and it looked nice. And letting it slowly simmer makes the meat nice and tender, and it is more flavourful than chicken fillet. Which you can obviously use in the recipe if you prefer. But I was positively surprised with the turkey leg, and will definitely use it again for something else. So all in all, I think this soup is quite a winner. Even if I say so myself.

Friday quickie and more Harissa

This Friday quickie is again a faux Friday dish, as it was cooked earlier this week. Currently I'm away in Norwich for a work thingy, unable to enjoy a Friday quickie. Although it also gave me an excuse not to go to Friday evening bootcamp, so I guess there is something good with the bad. Of course I would rather be home on my sofa slouching right now. 

This is part three in my triptych of recipes specifically aimed at using up the jar of Harissa I have in my fridge to prevent it from becoming one of those things you find in a few months at the back of the fridge growing new life forms. The two other recipes are Moroccan soups, one with chickpeas and quinoa and the other with cauliflower and roasted garlic. 

Recently I have mostly been cooking chicken legs and thighs as the majority of my cooking has been done in the slow cooker. Breast fillets easily go a bit dry if prepared that way, although I'm sure there are great recipes for chicken breast fillets in the slow cooker as well, just need to bring down the cooking time a bit. But roasted in the oven like this, they are delicious and a very healthy alternative. This recipe has no added fat or sugar and is high in protein and low in fat. Tomatoes also have a carotenoid called lycopene which has been shown to possibly be linked with reduced risk of certain types of cancer. Obviously, the data is far from conclusive, but be it this way or that, at least tomatoes are low in fat and sugar, have lots of good micronutrients such as vitamines. And of course they taste absolutely divine, and make this a beautiful, colourful dish. The recipe is from BBC Good Food.

Harissa roasted chicken (serves 4):
4 chicken breast fillets
2 tsp Harissa paste
1 tbsp oregano
(olive oil, salt, pepper)
300 g cherry tomatoes
olives (I used a 200 g can of lemon stuffed green olives)

The howto:
Preheat oven to 200 degrees C. Food really can't get much easier or quicker than this. Put the chicken fillets in a roasting tin, and rub with Harissa paste and oregano. If you want to, drizzle olive oil on top and season with salt and pepper. I didn't add any of either as I thought the olives would be salty enough and the pepper wouldn't taste very much through the Harissa. Cook for about 10 minutes. The original recipe says to cover with foil, but as you could probably guess, I couldn't be bothered to do that. Add olives and tomatoes, and roast for another 10 minutes. Serve with a green salad, or my new favourite, cauliflower and broccoli mash. Which is simply steamed cauliflower and broccoli blended with a knob of butter and seasoned with salt and pepper. Absolutely delicious!

The verdict:
I always tend to over cook chicken breasts. And although it's important to make sure chicken is cooked through, breasts don't need more than 15-20 minutes in the oven so keep an eye on them. There is a bit of fluids leaking from the olives and tomatoes, so the chicken was cooking in those lovely juices keeping it nice and moist. The harissa brings quite a kick to the chicken and roasted cherry tomatoes get a wonderful sweet flavour. This is truly fast food suitable for any quick dinner. It's also great for the lunchbox, I made four servings and packed in single serving Tupperware to take along to work. 

Moroccan soup

This is one of my all time favourite soups. And we are definitely back in high soup season. I mean, who wants soup in the summer? But when the evenings are getting chilly and it's dark outside, there is nothing like a hot bowl of soup to warm you up after crawling around in the mud for bootcamp, or whatever it is you happen to do out there in the dark and rain. I find soups great when trying to lose weight, as you can have a big bowl and still only have a reasonable amount of calories. It also makes your meal stretch out as you sit there and spoon all that broth. You have time to get that feeling of being sated and not go back for seconds. Although, I pre-define all my portion sizes while cooking, so there is no seconds. Otherwise I would eat a whole pot if this soup in one sitting. As you have probably figured, I'm trying to lose weight pretty much all the time, so there are a lot of soups at the InvisiblePinkHouse. How come it's such a struggle to go down even a few pounds, but it's easy to put on at least double that in just a few weeks of sloppy eating? I think it definitely defines the laws of thermodynamics Soups are also quick to throw together and can be left to cook while doing other things, so perfect to get going after coming home from the gym and left to slowly cook while taking a shower and getting into my jammies.

I got this recipe from my colleague, and have slightly adapted it and it has become one of my favourite soups. I usually make it fully vegetarian as in the recipe below, but sometimes add in stir fried chicken if I want to make it richer. The soup freezes well, I like to pack it into portion sized servings, move it to the fridge the night before I eat it (or take it out in the morning and let it thaw in room temperature until lunchtime). The flavours just get fuller when you heat it a second time.

Moroccan soup (serves 4):

2 onions

2 carrots

3 stalks of celery

2 cloves garlic

a piece of fresh ginger root

1 tbsp oil

2 tsp harissa paste

1 tbsp ground cumin

400 g tinned tomatoes

2 tbsp tomato puree

1 vegetable stock cube

1 can chickpeas (400g)

20 g quinoa (or couscous)

fresh coriander and lemon to serve

One serving contains 210 kcal (6.9 g fat, 29 g carbs and 7.8 g protein).

The howto:

Finely chop onions, garlic and ginger, slice carrots and celery. Fry in oil for about five minutes, add the harissa paste and ground cumin and fry for another few minutes. Add tinned tomatoes, chickpeas, tomato puree and stock cube along with about 500ml water. Let cook for half an hour, add quinoa and let cook for another 10 minutes or so, until the quinoa is done. If you like more of a stew consistency than a soup, just add more quinoa. Serve with a wedge of lemon and finely chopped fresh coriander. 

The verdict:

This is a really warming and spicy soup. I love to have it with some rye bread. Finland meets Morocco. It's funny, this is the soup that has made me like celery. I think I had never bought celery before making this soup, as I really didn't like the taste of it. But then again, the only time I had really paid attention to it was when it was served to me raw. And I still don't like the taste of raw celery, I'm pretty certain we are not meant to eat it raw. But in soups and stews, it has become on of my favourites. The flavour gets nice and mellow when it's cooked and it looses all of that horrible bitterness that makes it so unappealing when raw. Now celery is one of those things I always try to keep in my fridge, in fact right now I have two giant packs of celery in the fridge, waiting to be chopped into whatever soup or stew I'm making next. Basically this soup has everything I like, carrots, onions, tomatoes and chickpeas. Oh how I love chickpeas, sometimes I eat them straight out of the can, that's how much I love them. And I had never had Harissa before trying this soup. I like it because it gives the soup a very warm and spicy taste without being too hot. I have a very delicate mouth and I don't like anything hot like chillies because they just hurt my mouth. But Harissa (in controlled quantities) gives a sweeter kind of hotness, which I absolutely love.