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.

Nutty Pear Crumble with Haagen-Dazs Honey, Walnut and Cream

I love crumbles - they are very wintery puddings, aren't they? Often served with cream, custard or ice cream, apple crumble is one of my favourite desserts.

When I was sent a voucher to try out a new flavour of Haagen-Dazs ice cream - Honey, Walnut and Cream - I thought a crumble would be a lovely thing to make to serve with it. I decided to try something a bit different and use pear instead of apple, and mirror one of the flavours of the ice cream by adding some nuts.

The ice cream is very creamy with a swirl of honey in the middle for an added hit of sweetness. The walnuts add a nice crunch and you get a different mixture of flavours in every spoonful. It's really good on its own, and works really well with desserts as it wouldn't overpower the flavour of the pudding you serve it with.

I remembered a Weightwatchers recipe for crumble I'd once made, that used rolled or porridge oats in the topping as well as flour and sugar as a way to use less of the latter two ingredients; I decided to add some oats and some chopped nuts into my crumble topping for a filling, warming winter crunch.

To serve 2, you need:
2 pears
1 tbsp. artificial sweetener (optional)
50g low fat spread
50g plain flour
25g caster sugar
25g chopped mixed nuts
25g rolled or porridge oats
Haagen-Dazs Honey, Walnut and Cream ice cream, to serve

 

Preheat oven to 180C (it's good to make this while you already have the oven on to make dinner - it's lovely after a roast!). Peel and slice the pears and place in a saucepan with 100ml water. Bring to the boil, cover and simmer until the water has evaporated and the pe
ars have softened. Add sweetener if desired.

Spoon the pears into an ovenproof dish and set aside.

Rub the low-fat spread and flour together in a bowl to make a breadcrumb texture then stir in the sugar, nuts and oats. Scatter over the dish with the pears and bake in the oven for 30 minutes until browned and crisp.

 

Serve warm, with Haagen-Dazs Honey, Walnut and Cream.

GBBO Pistachio and White Chocolate Churros

I treated myself to the latest Great British Bake Off recipe book since it was only £7 at a Book People book sale at work. This was when the series was only part-way through and I wasn't sure what they would be making each week though the recipes in the book do give a clue. I really liked the look of the pistachio and white chocolate churros, which I think I remember were made by Jane, the eventual runner-up of the show.

The full recipe is available on the BBC Food website which is helpful as it would have taken me ages to write out everything I did! I consider myself a fairly proficient baker, but I found these really hard - not to make as much as to assemble.

The book had a good explanation of how to shell pistachios; after you remove the hard shell there is still a brown skin covering the green nut. Bring the pistachios to boil in a pan of water and simmer for ten seconds; drain them in a sieve then rub with kitchen paper or use your fingers and the brown skins come off easily.

When I made the pistachio custard and pulsed the nuts in a food processor, I just couldn't get them smooth enough, so my custard was quite lumpy, even after I sieved it.

 

Making the churros was fairly easy but the largest star nozzle I have isn't that big - I wasn't aware that they come in bigger sizes but it meant that the churros that I piped were pretty thin. This wouldn't normally be a problem - I just rolled some of them in sugar and served them with chocolate sauce and they were brilliant. However, the idea is to pipe the pistachio custard inside the churros which I found absolutely impossible as they were so thin, and my custard was quite thick. I ended up splitting them down the middle and serving as a sort of open churro!

 

 

These did taste really nice but were quite fiddly to make with the various stages and I couldn't work out how to pipe them big enough to fill. I won't be making these again, or applying to go on the Great British Bake Off any time soon!

I'm sharing these with Treat Petite, hosted by Stuart at Cakeyboi and Kat the Baking Explorer.

Ferrero Rocher Cupcakes

A neighbour gave us a box of Ferrero Rocher for Christmas, but my fiancé doesn't like them, and I'm trying to lose weight. Which is not to say I won't eat chocolate but I'm not going to open a box of chocolates and munch my way through them -even over a longer period. Friends and family have known that for a long time so never give me boxes of chocolates any more!

It was a very nice gesture by our neighbour though and I didn't want the goodies to go to waste, so hit upon the idea of using them in cupcakes. I wish I could say the idea was my own but I have come across them on the internet a few times and my good friend Ros has made them and posted the recipe on her site, The More Than Occasional Baker.

It was this recipe that I used when I went to see my family a few days before my birthday.

Ferrero Rocher, for anyone who hasn't had one before, consist of a whole hazelnut surrounded by wafer, a 'velvety filling', smooth milk chocolate and finely chopped hazelnut pieces. The box also included three Ferrero Rondnoir, "a delicious combination of tastes and textures from fine wafer and rich velvety cocoa filling to a dark chocolate covered hazelnut at its heart", and three Raffaello - "delicate layers of wafer, an elegant velvety centre and a toasted almond, all finished with a sprinkling of coconut".

To recreate the Ferrero Rocher taste the cupcakes have a whole Ferrero Rocher baked inside! They consist of a chocolate cake, with Nutella frosting, topped with chopped nuts and drizzled with chocolate. Ros did two types of frosting on top of hers and topped them with a whole Ferrero Rocher but I didn't have enough of the chocolates to do this and decided a whole Ferrero Rocher was a big so instead I piped a swirl of buttercream, which I made from just icing sugar, butter and Nutella, sprinkled the chopped nuts over the top and then drizzled over some Choc Shot - this is a liquid chocolate that is designed to be used as a hot chocolate drink and has 85% less fat than leading brands of solid chocolate - but what I also like about it is that it's great to drizzle on cakes and desserts.

Check out the link above for the recipe itself which I followed other than the tweaks described above. Here's how I made the cakes:

 

Mixing up the batter

Here I've spooned a little of the cake mixture into each cake case then popped a Ferrero Rocher into the bottom of each cupcake case - I used gold cases to mimic the chocolate wrappers.

 

After filling up the cake cases and baking in the oven

 

Piping the Nutella buttercream on top in swirls with a star nozzle

Chopped nuts and Choc Shot

 

The cupcakes in all their glory

 

 

 I'm sharing this with Alphabakes, the blog challenge hosted by myself and Ros of The More Than Occasional Baker - we have come to the end of the alphabet for the second time and our final letter is F.

 

 I'm also sharing this with Treat Petite, hosted by Stuart at Cakeyboi and Kat the Baking Explorer. They probably would have fit better with last month's theme which was favourite sweets and chocolate but this month their theme is picnics. I took these down to my parents' house and they travel fine in a tin so while they might mean you need a wet wipe for your fingers I don't think there's any reason why you couldn't take these on a picnic!

Finally I'm sending these to Love Cake, hosted by Ness at JibberJabberUK. Her theme is 'signature bakes' and while I don't have one particular cake that I'm known for as I make something different every time, that's actually my signature - I'm known for unusual cakes, showstoppers and turning everyday sweets, chocolate and snacks into cake, which is what I've done here!

 

 

 

Deliciously Ella Brazil Nut and Rocket Pesto Pasta

I was given the Deliciously Ella cookery book for my birthday and have already made a couple of things from it; I’m never going to be as health-conscious as she is, and certainly don’t think it’s likely that I will ever switch to a vegan or vegetarian diet, but it’s definitely good to switch things up and every now and then eat some super-healthy meat-free meals.
 

 

 

I liked the idea of her zucchini noodles with a minted avocado sauce but I wasn’t quite brave enough to make the zucchini noodles – at least not at this point, because I don’t really like courgette but I also don’t really like avocado! But I do have a spiralizer and I reckon if I made a different sauce with the ‘courgetti’ (courgette spaghetti) it would be OK, so watch this space!

 

 

I decided therefore to cook regular spaghetti but make the sauce as I have a lot of mint growing in my garden and love to find recipes I can use it in.

 

As Ella says, this is a very rich, creamy pasta –I left out the mushrooms as I can’t stand them though Ella does say they add a “next level of deliciousness” so if you like mushrooms then do add them in.

 

I chopped the nuts in a food processor and added the avocado, oil, lime, mint leaves and salt and blended until I had a chunky sauce. The beauty is that this doesn’t need to be cooked so it is so quick. It’s nice heated through a little so when I drained the pasta I returned it to the pan with the sauce. It was surprisingly good given I don’t really like avocado and I felt very virtuous!

 

 

 I'm sharing this with Meat Free Mondays, hosted by Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes.

Jen's Food is hosting Extra Veg this month on behalf of Helen at Fuss Free Flavours and Michelle of Utterly Scrummy; this is a great way to eat some extra veg almost without noticing!
 

 

Emily at A Mummy Too is hosting Pasta Please on behalf of Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes so I'm sharing this recipe.

 

 

Chunky Peanut Brittle

My mum really likes peanuts and I decided to make her some edible gifts for Mother's Day recently, so thought that peanut brittle would be fun to try. It looked very easy to make and the recipe is indeed very simple, but as I discovered quite easy to get wrong!

 

I used this recipe thinking it was by Nigella Lawson, but realised afterwards it was posted in the community section of her website.

All you need is 100g peanuts and 100g caster sugar. Heat the sugar in a small pan over a low heat until it is caramel coloured. I learnt that it can turn very quickly and start to burn so you do need to keep an eye on it!

The recipe I used said to add the peanuts, then pour onto a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper. But as soon as I added the peanuts to the hot sugar in the pan, they clumped together and set almost straight away. Peanut brittle is supposed to be flat, thin and - well, brittle - and by the time I was able to get it onto my baking parchment it was already in big clumps. So what I would recommend trying is spreading out your peanuts on the baking tray lined with parchment and then pouring the sugar over the top.

Mine set very quickly - it didn't even need to go in the fridge - and I broke it up into pieces and put it in a little box. I thought it tasted quite nice even if it didn't look quite right!

Regular readers may have noticed that I like to make foods inspired by fiction, whether that's movies or books. This recipe fits in with a blog challenge called Novel Food, hosted by Simona at Pulchetta.com. I read a lovely book recently by Jenny Colgan called Rosie Hopkins' Sweetshop of Dreams, about a woman who moves to a small village to look after her elderly aunt, who runs the local sweetshop. She ends up learning a lot about her aunt, and herself - and sweets! Each chapter of the book begins with either a recipe or a passage from her aunt's notebook about a particular type of sweet and there is one chapter which begins with a passage on peanut brittle. So that was also partly what inspired me to make this recipe, and for that reason I'm sharing this post with Simona for her challenge.

I'm also sending this to Treat Petite, as their theme this month is mums and I made this for my mum! The challenge is hosted by Stuart at Cakeyboi and Kat aka The Baking Explorer.

Salmon with Linguine and Leek Pesto

I was looking for a springtime pasta recipe and came across this recipe for salmon with linguine and ramp pesto. I'd never heard of ramp but according to Wikipedia the allium tricoccum is known as many things, including ramp, spring onion and wild leek. I don't think it's actually the American word for spring onion though as that's scallion. I had some leeks in my fridge and decided that would be close enough and I would give it a go!

I didn't have Asiago cheese (whatever that is) but did have parmesan in my fridge, and a packet of sliced almonds that needed using up. So I decided to throw the whole lot together and make my own springtime pasta!

To serve 3-4, you need:
1 leek, sliced
2 tbsp. oil
30g grated parmesan
30g flaked almonds
handful of fresh parsley
approx. 4-6 tbsp. oil
to serve: linguine
salmon fillet

Cook the pasta according to pack instructions and cook the salmon fillet in whichever manner you prefer - pan fry, poach, oven roast or even microwave. This is really just the recipe for the pesto...

Slice the leek and add to a large pan with 2 tbsp. oil. Heat until the leeks are softened but not browned.

Transfer to a food processor along with the parmesan, almonds and parsley, and pulse for a few seconds. With the motor running, slowly add the oil until it reaches your preferred consistency.





Toss through the cooked pasta and top with the salmon. Enjoy!

This had a different flavour (obviously) to pesto I'd had before but thanks to the parmesan and nuts it was still definitely a pesto, and I really enjoyed it.

I'm sending this to Credit Crunch Munch, hosted this month by Jo's Kitchen on behalf of Helen at Fuss Free Flavours and Camilla at Fab Food 4 All. Parmesan isn't cheap but I'm sure a lot of people like me have half a packet hanging around to be used up, and as this recipe only used things I already had open in my fridge, hopefully it counts!

This recipe is a good way to sneak in some veg so I am sending this to the Extra Veg challenge, hosted by Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary. The challenge was started by Helen at Fuss Free Flavours and Michelle at Utterly Scrummy.

Leeks are in season so I am sending this to Simple and In Season, hosted by Ren Behan.

The recipe uses fresh parsley so I am sending it to Cooking with Herbs, hosted by Karen at Lavender and Lovage.

 

Finally I am sending this to Pasta Please, hosted by Family Friends Food on behalf of Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes as the challenge this month is for springtime pasta recipes.