Easy Veggie Nuggets

These veggie nuggets are aimed at children but I think would be just as good for adults - and I wonder if instead of shaping into individual nuggets or patties, it would work made into a log and sliced - a bit like a nut roast for Sunday dinner.

The recipe came from an Instagram account called @zaynesplate - it’s really easy to make and you can adapt it with your own vegetables. You can see the recipe here.

I used broccoli, carrots, chickpeas, rolled oats and cheese as the recipe suggests. I think if you were making this for adults or older children I wouldn’t blend it and would leave the texture more varied, and perhaps add sweet corn as well. My daughter enjoyed these and there was plenty left to go into the freezer for next time.

Easy Loaf Tin Carrot Cake

 
This is a very easy carrot cake using ingredients you probably already have in the cupboard and fridge that takes very little time to throw together. It was really light and moist and absolutely delicious!

I didn’t actually realise it was a loaf cake until I was part way through the recipe but it makes baking and decorating it much easier. I made this while my baby daughter was having a nap, as my mother in law was having friends over the following day and had invited us to drop in and mentioned not having had time to make a cake so I wanted to help (though in the end she made a fantastic coffee cake as well!).

This recipe comes from the Abel and Cole Cookbook, which I bought (I think on a special offer) back in the days when I had a veg box delivered every week. These days it doesn’t seem worthwhile as my husband is very fussy particularly when it comes to veg and we wouldn’t get through even their smallest box, though now we’ve started weaning our daughter maybe it is something to look into again!

Abel and Cole has a similar recipe on their website where they say they spruced up the recipe from their first cookbook, which is the considerably simpler one that I made.

 
This is what I did:

You need:
185g sugar
180ml vegetable oil
2 eggs
150g self-raising flour
130g grated carrots
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon

for the icing:
175g cream cheese
175g butter at room temperature
225g icing sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Preheat oven to 180C. Beat the sugar, oil and eggs together until well combined, then fold in the flour. Stir in the grated carrots, the baking powder, bicarb of soda, salt and cinnamon.

Grease a loaf tin - I use PME Release A Cake Spray 600 ml - and pour in the cake mix. Bake for 30 minutes, testing with a skewer, then turn onto a wire rack to cool.





To make the icing beat together the cream cheese, butter, icing sugar and vanilla. Slice the cake through the middle (this wasn't in the original recipe but I decided to do it and loved it) and spread over one half of the cake and sandwich together then use the rest to cover the top of the cake.

 

 I'm sharing this with Baking Crumbs hosted by Only Crumbs Remain and CookBlogShare hosted this time by Monika at Everyday Healthy Recipes.

 

 

 

GBBO Roast Vegetable and Cashew Pie

I haven't actually done any proper baking for ages - I've been far too busy at work and with other things to do at home. Since I treated myself to the latest Great British Bake Off cookery book recently I realised I wasn't going to have a lot of chance to bake from it so decided to try one of the savoury recipes. I was intrigued by this roasted vegetable pie which used cashews as a form of protein, and decided to make it but change some of the vegetables. Instead of aubergine, courgette and red pepper, I used carrot, sweet potato and butternut squash.

The original recipe is here; I'm not going to type it all out but essentially you roast the vegetables with some garlic, oregano, salt, pepper and chilli flakes and allow them to cool.

Roll out some ready-made puff pastry and spread the veg across the pastry; at this point I added some red onion I had softened in a frying pan as well. Add the cashews and some sun-dried tomatoes.

 

Place another piece of pastry on top, press down the edges and crimp with a fork, and make a little air hole in the top. Brush with beaten egg and bake in the oven at 220C for about 25 minutes until golden brown.

This pie was delicious; the cashews soften a little and provide a nice texture contrast to the softer vegetables and I really like the way it looks! All this needs is some green veg or a green salad to serve for a hearty, filling vegetarian dinner.

This is something I think you could serve even as the main course for a vegetarian Christmas dinner, so I am sharing this with Charlotte's Lively Kitchen for the Food Calendar challenge.

Spiced Roast Lamb Chops with Roots and Alliums

I love lamb though my husband doesn't eat it so I don't cook it very often. But when I was looking through my Sophie Grigson recipe book Country Kitchen I decided it was worth cooking this dish even if I had to make him something else!

The book is divided into seasons and this recipe comes from the autumn section; even though I think we are probably in winter now it is really good for this time of year.

You can find the recipe on the Good Food Channel. It uses tamarind pulp; I wasn't sure where to get that from but was able to buy tamarind paste from the supermarket which seemed close enough. It gave the dish a lovely unusual flavour - a little sweet and sour at the same time.

I had a packet of nigella seeds in the cupboard - I can't remember where I got them from, I think it was a Turkish supermarket. I mixed the tamarind, oil, garlic, water, turmeric, cumin seeds and nigella seeds and drizzled it over some lamb chops, chantenay carrots, red onion and potatoes.

That's pretty much all you have to do; roast it all in one pan in the oven and allow the juices and flavours to mingle. Delicious!

Sticky Sausage, Carrot and Cous Cous Bake

Sausages are a great family food at this time of year, perhaps due to the association between bangers and bonfire night. It's also nice when you can just throw things into a pan in the oven at this time of year and enjoy some warming flavours.

I came across this recipe on the Tesco website for sticky sausages with carrots and couscous - not things I would have thought to combine, but it was really good and something I will definitely make again.

To serve 4 (or fewer, depending on how many sausages you want per person) you need:
8 pork sausages
150g Tendersweet carrots, halved lengthways - I used regular carrots though Chantenay carrots would also be good
1 red onion, sliced
1 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1 tbsp. olive oil
2 tsp clear honey

for the couscous:
200g couscous
1 tbsp. fresh mint leaves, chopped
1 tbsp. fresh parsley, chopped
1 tbsp. olive oil
1/2 lemon, juiced

For the harissa yogurt

1 tbsp harissa paste

150g pot natural yogurt

 

Preheat oven to 200C. Line a roasting tin with foil and put the sausages, carrots and onions in the pan and toss with the cumin, coriander and oil. Roast for 30 minutes, turning halfway, until cooked through.

 

 

 

Make up the couscous according to pack instructions and leave to stand until all the water has been absorbed. Mix in the herbs, oil and lemon juice.

 

To make the harissa yogurt, mix the harissa paste into the yogurt. When the sausages are cooked, drizzle over the honey and toss the sausages and vegetables until they are coated. Serve with the couscous and harissa yogurt on the side.

 

I'm sharing this with Charlotte's Lively Kitchen's Food Calendar challenge as it was British Sausage Week when I made this recipe.

Carrot Rice 'Risotto' with Chorizo

Did you know that you can do more with your spiralizer than just make vegetable spaghetti? You can also make rice - or a vegetable rice anyway!

After spiralizing vegetables into spaghetti-like strands you can give it a quick whizz in the food processor and turn it into little grains like rice. I don't think you could put the raw veg straight into a blender - that is, you couldn't as easily turn a raw carrot into carrot rice without spiralizing it first, and a cooked carrot would just turn it to mush. You could of course grate it rather than spiralize like I did with this cauliflower rice.

I've got the Inspiralized recipe book by Ali Maffucci and also get a lot of recipes from her blog, www.inspiralized.com. I found a recipe for a spicy seafood and chorizo paella using carrot 'rice' and diced bacon (I used chorizo);  It tasted absolutely delicious - I was really impressed, and since it's now Sugar Free September (for some people at least) I thought I'd share my adaptation of this recipe if anyone is looking for meal ideas.

To serve two, you need:
1 tbsp. oil or a few sprays of Fry Light
1 clove garlic, crushed
1/4 tsp dried chilli flakes
half an onion, diced
1 chorizo sausage, sliced
200g tin chopped tomatoes
2 carrots, peeled and spiralized then processed in  blender to turn them into rice
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 tbsp. lemon juice
2 cod fillets, chopped into chunky pieces
12 large prawns
1 tbsp. chopped fresh parsley

Fry the chorizo, garlic and onion in the oil

Spiralizing the carrot, then pulse in a blender until it turns into 'rice'

Add to the pan with the tinned tomatoes, chilli, paprika, and turmeric, the cod and the prawns

Then add the lemon juice and sprinkle with the parsley. The finished dish:

Spiralized Courgette and Carrot with Tuna and Lemon

This is a simple dinner I threw together after work one evening. Using a spiralizer really transforms vegetables - I don't even like courgette normally and certainly wouldn't eat a plateful of it but this meal tasted delicious and was really healthy.

I began by spiralizing a courgette and a carrot, and frying them in a pan with a little water until the vegetables had softened. I opened a tin of tuna - which I ended up sharing with the cat - and stirred it in along with some lemon juice, oil and dill. Toss the whole thing together in the pan to warm through and serve.

Spiralized Vegetables with Broccoli Pesto

The lengths I go to for dieting… I wasn’t looking forward to my dinner recently as I’d decided to make pesto out of broccoli and serve it over spiralized veg, while my fiancé was tucking in to a pizza. Though as he correctly pointed out, it was a frozen pizza and he could have ordered Domino’s but didn’t as he knew it would make it harder for me - and I was the one who cooked him the pizza!

 

But when I actually started to eat my dinner I was surprised at how good it actually tasted, and I really enjoyed it. Which is not to say I wouldn’t rather have had a pizza but I have a wedding dress to get in to!

 

The recipe comes from I Quit Sugar by Sarah Wilson which has become a book I turn to a lot at the moment!

  

To serve one, you need:

Spiralized veg: I used half a tub of spiralized carrot from Tesco (it’s hard to put a carrot through a spiralizer unless it’s a really thick one), and I spiralized half a butternut squash to go with it.

For the pesto:

1 cup broccoli florets, steamed until tender

1 spring onion, peeled

1 clove garlic, peeled and crushed

2 tbsp olive oil

Juice of ½ lemon

15g grated parmesan or 30g cashews, soaked in water for 1-4 hours and drained – but I didn’t have time to do this and used them without soaking and it worked pretty much fine I think. I also cheated and used both the parmesan and the cashews which made the pesto more substantial and gave it a lovely flavour.

Salt and pepper to taste

Basically I put all the ingredients in a food processor

 

Pulse until you have a thick green paste

Serve over spiralized veg, which I find best gently steamed or stir fried so it isn't raw but it doesn't take much cooking:

I'm sending this to Meat Free Mondays, hosted by Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes. Also this recipe would be vegan if you left out the parmesan.

 

Spiralized Salmon and Broccoli Balls with Carrot Pineapple Rice

This recipe comes from Ali Maffucci's book Inspiralized, and takes a bit of preparation but the cooking time itself is minimal - and more importantly, it tastes amazing. If you've only spiralized courgette or butternut squash and used it instead of pasta so far, you are really missing out - there are so many ways you can use your spiralizer, but you could also make this recipe even if you don't have one.

I don't want to repeat the entire recipe as I'm sure Ali would appreciate it if you bought the book but I'm going to describe what I did. The recipe consist of three elements - salmon and broccoli balls, which I thought would be like fishcakes minus the potato but actually were quite different; homemade teriyaki sauce; and carrot 'rice' cooked with spring onion and pineapple.

I started by making the salmon balls. Preheat the oven, and pulse some broccoli in a food processor. Add a piece of salmon, some garlic and ginger and onion or shallot and pulse again. Turn the food processor off, and scoop the mixture into balls. Place on a foil-lined baking sheet and bake in the oven for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile make the teriyaki sauce by mixing soy sauce, mirin, honey, garlic and ginger.

After the salmon balls have baked for 15 minutes, drizzle over a couple of spoonfuls of the teriyaki sauce and bake for another 10 minutes.

Meanwhile spiralize some carrots -you need to choose quite thick ones otherwise it's tricky. I used three carrots; once they are spiralized, wash out the bowl of the food processor and pulse the carrots until you have a rice-like consistency.

In a small pan, heat a little coconut oil and fry some chopped spring onion, garlic and ginger. Add the carrot rice, some chopped pineapple and a little teriyaki sauce and stir fry for a few minutes. Serve the salmon and broccoli balls on top of the carrot. This was a delicious meal and I felt very healthy!

I'm entering this in Spiralizer Saturday, the blog challenge I run for all things spiralized. If you have any good recipes, link them up here!

I'm also sending this to Extra Veg, hosted by Helen at Fuss Free Flavours.

Spiralized Vegetable Pad Thai

I love the idea of adding spiralized vegetables to a ‘normal’ recipe – they work really well in stir-fries particularly if you don’t like a lot of the veg that you get in stir-fry packet mixes or would normally add to the pan, like beansprouts, mange tout or mini corn on the cob. You can spiralize all sorts of veg you wouldn’t normally add to a stir fry to add some bulk and make sure you get an extra portion of your 5 a day!

 

My future mother-in-law came round for dinner this week and whenever we eat at hers we have a Thai takeaway, and we both always order a Pad Thai - chicken and prawn for me, and vegetable for her.

 

As I made a really good Pad Thai not long before I decided to use the same recipe again. This time however I left out the beansprouts (which are a key ingredient I know!) as my MIL doesn't like them, and put in some mange tout that she does like. I then got out my spiralizer and spiralized some carrot, butternut squash and mooli (a veg from the radish family I discovered recently).

 

 

I cooked the butternut squash first as I thought it would take longer, then the mooli and the carrot. I cooked some chicken pieces separately for me and some tofu for my MIL and added these into the plates at the end. With the delicious Pad Thai sauce, some noodles and a sprinkling of chopped peanut over the top it made a delicious meal.

 

 

I'm entering this into the Spiralizer Saturday challenge I an running each month. Link up your own Spiralizer recipes!

 

 

I'm also sending this to Meat Free Mondays hosted by Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes, and to Extra Veg, hosted by Michelle at Utterly Scrummy and Helen at Fuss Free Flavours.

 

 

 

Spiralizer Saturday: Prawn Mooli Stir-Fry

This week my spiralized meal was based on a recipe from the Inspiralized cookery book by Ali Maffucci, which is a brilliant book (and website) if you are just getting started with a spiralizer. It was called Prawn Daikon Pho, a daikon being a type of radish, sometimes known as a winter radish or an Oriental radish. I'd never heard of it, let alone seen one in the supermarket, but I did remember seeing something called a mooli that was also from the radish family. From internet research I've decided that daikon and mooli are either the same thing or at least closely related!

If you have any spiralizer recipes you want to share, please add them to the linky at the bottom of this post!

I don't really like radishes as I find them too peppery so was a bit dubious about whether I would like mooli (and let's just say I'm not exactly known for liking new vegetables) - but I loved it! That may have had something to do with the sauce in this stir-fry but I am keen to try the mooli again (I used half of it in this recipe) in something else.

The Inspiralized recipe also includes jalapeno peppers but I don't like spicy food; I also left out the spring onions, onion, and whole coriander leaves - and instead added fresh dill which I had from another recipe. Ali's recipe is also a Pho which is more of a soup - I find eating those very messy so made it a much drier stir-fry. It tasted really good and was very healthy - I was having a bad day thinking about how much weight I need to lose so this made me feel a bit better!

 

Serves 2
300ml vegetable stock
2 tsp Thai fish sauce
3 tbsp. lime juice
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp chopped fresh ginger, or 1/2 tsp ginger puree from a tube
approx. 160g cooked and peeled large prawns
half a mooli or daikon radish, peeled and spiralized
1 large carrot, peeled and spiralized
handful of small broccoli florets
1 tbsp. chopped fresh dill

Heat the stock, fish sauce, lime juice, coriander and ginger in a large wok and add the spiralized mool, carrot and the broccoli. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables have softened, then add the prawns and heat through. To serve, sprinkle with the chopped dill and a dash of lime juice if desired.

Sticky Chinese Pork with Spiralized Carrots

For this week's Spiralizer Saturday I cooked a meal based on this recipe from Delicious Magazine for sticky Chinese pork. But instead of having it with mangetout and pak choi I had spiralized carrot, which worked really well.

I started by marinating the diced pork in soy sauce, oil, Chinese five spice powder, garlic, ginger and honey.

If you want to spiralize a carrot, you need to choose the thickest carrot you can find - I've had difficult in the past when the carrots were too small.

Stir-fry the pork with the marinade

Add beansprouts, red pepper (I ran out and didn't realise) and the spiralized carrot

Finally I added some small florets of broccoli

Cook until the vegetables are tender then serve.

Once again I'm hosting the Spiralizer Saturday linkup - if you have any recipes that can be made using a spiralizer add them here!