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.

Courgetti (Zucchini Noodles) with Tomato and Red Pepper Sauce

This year’s trendy kitchen gadget is the spiralizer, which turns vegetables (and fruit) into spaghetti-like strands. I’ve already used it to make these sweet potato waffles which were much tastier than I expected, and really healthy. I hadn’t successfully made ‘spaghetti’ out of it yet – I did spiralize a carrot, and bring the strands to the boil, at which point they turned to complete mush. Lesson learnt!

This time I had a courgette (zucchini) in the fridge left over from making vegetable kebabs for a barbecue and remembered that courgetti was one of the first recipes I came across for the spiralizer – courgette spaghetti. You can serve it with whatever you like; I also had some tomatoes and red pepper left in the fridge from the barbecue and found this recipe from Hemsley and Hemsley, two sisters who have a healthy eating website and recipe book.

They recommend eating the courgette raw but I didn’t really fancy that as I don’t even eat courgette at all normally, so I decided to fry it in a little butter. Be aware you don’t get a huge amount of ‘spaghetti’ from one courgette; it was enough for a small portion (it was pretty late when I got home from work that night and I didn’t want a big dinner at 9pm) but otherwise I would say this amount is more of a starter, side dish or small meal. For two people, I would do three courgettes.

I changed their recipe a bit:

To serve one, you need:

Spiralizer machine

1 large courgette, trimmed flat at each end

Half a red pepper

2 tomatoes

1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

1 tbsp of oil for the pan plus 1 tbsp for the sauce

Clove of garlic

Handful of fresh basil

Handful of cashews or peanuts (I couldn’t find cashews in the cupboard and at 9pm wasn’t going to keep looking, so used unsalted peanuts!)

NB: Ideally you need to make the sauce, or at least the red pepper and tomato part, the day (or several hours) before.

Preheat oven to 165C.

Line a baking tray with foil and spread around 1 tbsp oil. Cut the tomatoes in half and the red pepper into chunks and place face down in the pan. Roast for about an hour; I had my oven at too high a temperature so the skins on the tomatoes burnt, but they were very easy to remove. After an hour, add the garlic to the tray and roast for another half an hour.

  

Remove the charred skins from the tomatoes and pepper and squeeze the garlic out of its skin, either into a small bowl or straight into a food processor. I did this part the night before so kept the ingredients in a bowl in the fridge.

In your food processor blend the tomato, pepper, garlic, vinegar and rest of the oil, plus the basil leaves, nuts and salt and pepper.

To make the courgetti, place the courgette in the spiralizer and turn the handle until you have what looks like spaghetti. You can eat this raw, according to the Hemsley and Hemsley recipe, but I preferred to warm it through in a frying pan in a little butter. Top with the tomato and red pepper sauce.

For someone who has honestly never willingly eaten courgette, I was very surprised at how nice this tasted! I think it will take a bit of getting used to- courgette that is, not spiralizing –but I would definitely class this recipe as a success.

Courgette is known in the US as zucchini but the name courgetti definitely sounds better for this dish! But since it does also begin with Z, and that is the letter I have chosen this month for Alphabakes (which I co-host with Ros of The More Than Occasional Baker) I am sending it in.

I'm also sending this to Extra Veg, hosted by Jen's Food, on behalf of Helen at Fuss Free Flavours and Michelle at Utterly Scrummy.

Vegan Christmas Dinner: Filo Vegetable Parcel

 

When I had my school friends over for a pre-Christmas dinner I made this turkey wellington; one of my friends is vegan so I made an alternative (I knew there were people present who wouldn't like any kind of vegan dish so there was no one-dish-suits-all option!). Of course, this is something that could be - and was - enjoyed by meat eaters as well. It's a filo pastry parcel containing roasted vegetables and would be a good option for a vegan or vegetarian Christmas dinner, or any regular dinner time really!

 

I based it on this recipe from the Food Network for a roasted vegetable strudel with red pepper coulis, but I didn't make the coulis due to lack of time and too many other things to cook at the same time, so instead served this with an orange sauce which was a lot quicker to make - some orange juice, cornflour and a little sweetener. I also forgot to add the tomatoes that were supposed to into the pastry parcel, as you roast the other veg first and add the tomatoes at the end - again I blame too much going on!

 

First roast a selection of vegetables - wintery ones are particularly good, though I included asparagus as that was in the recipe and I felt it added a little luxury, even though it isn't strictly asparagus season. First I roasted some sliced butternut squash, as I knew this would take longest, then added some carrot batons to the pan. In a second small pan I roasted sliced courgette, mushroom and asparagus spears. I roasted the veg in a little oil so the filling of the pastry wouldn't be dry.

 Don't forget to season the veg.

 

After roasting the veg, allow to cool. It's at this point you are supposed to add the tomatoes but I forgot! Place some sheets of filo pastry (I used the ready-made kind) on top of each other and spoon on a selection of the vegetables, then roll up the pastry like a strudel. I made two of these as you can see below.

Preheat the oven if necessary (if you roasted the veg in advance for instance). Bake the pastry parcels in the oven for about 20 minutes until golden brown.

Here you can see where I have cut the pastry in half. Each one of these parcels would serve two if there are side dishes to accompany, otherwise you could serve a whole one per person.

Here's a close-up of the filling. Have you made anything like this before, and how did it turn out?

I'm sending this to the Vegetable Palette challenge, hosted by Shaheen at Allotment 2 Kitchen, as the theme this month is festive veg.

Shaheen is also running the Eat Your Greens challenge, asking for entries featuring any green veg, so I am sending this to her for that challenge as well.

Extra Veg - my week of eating more fruit and veg

Inspired by Helen at Fuss Free Flavours, who has launched a challenge to encourage us to eat Extra Veg, I decided to spend a week making myself eat an extra portion of fruit and veg, on top of whatever I would normally have eaten. It made me realise that it's actually quite easy to eat more of your five a day, and with just a little more planning incorporate an extra piece of fruit or veg into your day. I even managed to eat some vegetables I don't like, by hiding them in my own food!

Monday
I took some homemade broccoli and stilton soup into work for my lunch; as I explained when I posted the recipe, I even managed to sneak in some courgette as an extra vegetable.



Tuesday

Today I made a delicious cake which I won't say too much about yet as it will be appearing on my blog shortly, other than to explain that the reason I've included it here is because it contains peaches.

Wednesday
I bought a recipe book on Amazon called the "Sneaky Chef" and it's full of really inventive ways to sneak vegetables into food. I decided to try a recipe for chicken fajitas with a cheese sauce; it appealed to me because the sauce called for stilton and I still had some left over from Christmas to use up. The hidden vegetables didn't sound like they would go with this at all but it worked surprisngly well and I couldn't even taste it.

Boil some cauliflower florets until tender. Peel and slice a quarter of a courgette so all the green is removed, and place the raw courgette with the cooked cauliflower in a food processor and blend until smooth.

You can freeze this if you like - maybe in an ice cube tray so you can add a couple of cubes to a meal.

While the recipe is a good way to hide veg, it isn't necessarily the healthiest. You mix a couple of spoonfuls of the vegetable puree with the same amount of mayonnaise and then crumble in some blue cheese.

Spread a little of the sauce over a flour tortilla

Then add some cooked chicken and any other fillings you want in your fajita

Roll up the tortilla and serve with rice or vegetables

Thursday
I made canneloni for dinner tonight; a meat version for my boyfriend and a vegetarian version for me. I don't like spinach (I have eaten it several times, as it was a favourite of the children for whom I was an au pair, so I know I can't stand it) - but I do like spinach and ricotta ravioli, as long as there isn't too much spinach. On that basis I decided to make my own spinach and cottage cheese cannelloni following a Slimming World recipe, which I will post here soon. In the meantime here's a photo. It was the first time I've cooked with spinach - other than when I was making dinner for my au pair family - and I was surprised at how much it reduced down, but any more in the cannelloni would have been in my opinion too much.

Friday
This morning I had fruit on my porridge. Tinned fruit as well as fresh counts as one of your five a day, though it's healthier to choose tinned fruit in its own juice rather than in syrup. This is a tasty addition to porridge and I now prefer it with fruit rather than without.

Saturday
 Today I largely failed but I was expecting that as I was out all day. I had a bowl of cereal as a hasty breakfast before going to Slimming World - I could have had fruit on my cereal but in my hurry completely forgot. Then I got the train straight after Slimming World to Bicester Village - if you haven't been before (and have some spare cash) then I highly recommend it. It's a designer outlet village north of London (not far from Oxford) with discounts of up to 75% - and in the January sale even bigger discounts. I got a Le Creuset casserole dish I've wanted for ages at half price, and I invested in a Mulberry Alexa! (Also half price). Lunch was a mini ham and cheese baguette at the train station as I got back late I'd already said to my boyfriend that we could have takeaway for dinner so overall it was a pretty unhealthy day. I did have pineapple on my pizza though, I wonder if that counts as an extra portion of fruit?!

Waiter... there's an unexpected topping on my pizza!

Sunday
I made provencale chicken from a Slimming World recipe and tried out my new heart-shaped Le Creuset casserole dish. The recipe called for courgettes, which as I've mentioned I don't like, so I threw some into a blender and stirred the puree into the sauce. Job done! 

I found it a lot easier than I was expecting to eat more fruit and vegetables, particularly as I found ways to hide veg I didn't like, and I'd forgotten how much I enjoy fruit on porridge. It does involve a little extra time and effort or sometimes just remembering to do something different, but once it becomes habit I'm sure I will barely notice that it takes me a few minutes longer. I'm going to try and eat more fruit and veg as often as I can!

I'm sending this to Helen at Fuss Free Flavours for her Extra Veg challenge and am expecting my whole week's worth of recipes will earn me a pat on the back!

Broccoli, Courgette and Stilton Soup

I'm trying to eat more veg this month, and I also wanted to use up some cheese from Christmas, so I decided broccoli and stilton soup would be a great idea. I am a pretty fussy eater and don't like a lot of veg, so had an idea of sneaking some hidden veg... into my own food! My theory was that if I couldn't see it, and hopefully couldn't taste it, I wouldn't mind eating it. Courgette (zucchini) seemed a good option!

I can only give rough quantities for this recipe as it depends how thick you like your soup. To serve 3/4 you need:

1 head broccoli

about 100g stilton or 6 Laughing Cow Light blue cheese triangles

about 1 pint vegetable stock

half a courgette (zucchini)

salt, pepper

crispy bacon pieces to serve (optional)

Chop the broccoli into florets

And slice the courgette

You can either use leftover Stilton...

... or if you want to make this soup low fat and Slimming World friendly, use Laughing Cow Light Blue Cheese.

Bring the vegetable stock to the boil in a pan and simmer the broccoli and courgette until tender. Add the cheese and stir until melted.

Blend to a smooth soup either using a hand blender in the saucepan or by transferring the soup to a standalone blender.

I had some leftover bits of crispy bacon I decided to serve on top of the soup, the different texture and taste complemented the flavour of the soup really well.

Most importantly, I couldn't taste the courgette - so I successfully squeezed an extra portion of veg into this meal. The soup lasted me three days and I took it into work for lunch so it was both healthy and thrifty, which is a great combination for January!

First I am sending this to Family Foodies, the blog challenge hosted by Vanesther at Bangers and Mash and Louisa at Eat Your Veg, as the theme this month is hidden goodies (that is, hidden fruit and veg).

The theme for this month's No Croutons Required, hosted by Lisa's Kitchen and Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes, is a vegetarian soup or salad. Obviously if you were making this for vegetarians, leave off the bacon! You should also check that the cheese is made with rennet that does not come from animals and is suitable for vegetarians.

Louisa at Eat Your Veg is also hosting the Four Seasons Food challenge along with Anneli at Delicieux, and they are looking for virtuous recipes this month, so I think my vegetable soup - with extra hidden veg - is a good example.

On a similar note, Helen at Fuss Free Flavours and Michelle at Utterly Scrummy are hosting a new challenge, Extra Veg. They want to encourage us to eat an extra portion of vegetables whenever we can - so while this broccoli soup alone would count, I've also added the extra portion of veg with the hidden courgette.

January's Feel Good Food challenge, hosted by A Kick at the Pantry Door, is tasty and inexpensive. You can use vegetables that are a little past their best in this soup, and it's a good way to use up leftover cheese (eg from Christmas) so this is a pretty frugal recipe.

I'm not done yet... January's Cheese Please challenge, hosted by Fromage Homage, is comfort food and winter warmers. Soup is a lovely winter warmer and since I've used stilton I am sending this over.

Simply Food is hosting the event Let's Cook with Green Vegetables, and since it has to be a vegetarian recipe, you'll need to leave out the bacon and check your cheese is vegetarian.

And finally I am sending this to Turquoise Lemons' No Waste Food Challenge as you can use leftover veg and the cheese was hanging around from Christmas.