Slow Cooker Baked Stuffed Butternut Squash with Walnut and Goat's Cheese

There's an easy way to cook a roast dinner for meat-eaters and vegetarians at the same time without needing a double oven, which not many people have in their kitchens. But there's one thing that many people do have: a slow cooker.

At Easter I really wanted to eat roast lamb, and had the idea of doing a roasted butternut squash for my mother-in-law who is vegetarian. I was worried that the smell of the lamb roasting would mean I couldn't cook the squash at the same time; I thought about roasting the squash while the lamb was resting but wasn't sure I had enough time. Instead, I decided to do the butternut squash in the slow cooker which meant I could put it on at the same time and not have to worry about it.

The recipe I used was a mish-mash of ideas I found online. I've made a stuffed roast butternut squash before; this time I decided to scoop out the butternut squash itself and use that as the filling.

To serve one, you need:
half a butternut squash
1 garlic clove, crushed
25g butter
1 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
30g walnut halves, chopped
30g goat's cheese, crumbled
1 tsp dried mixed herbs

Peel the butternut squash and cut it in half lengthways and remove the seeds. Place the butternut squash cut-side up. Cook on high for about two hours until the squash has softened. Meanwhile mix together the other ingredients.

Scoop out the centre of the butternut squash, leaving around 1cm around the edge so it retains its structure. Mash the butternut squash that you have removed in a bowl with the other ingredients.

Spoon the mixture back into the butternut squash; you can keep this warm in the slow cooker on low if you need to.

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

Rocky Road Halloween Graveyard Cake

If you haven't got much time for Halloween baking but want to make something as a treat, then look no further than this recipe. It would make a great centrepiece for a children's party - and goes down pretty well with adults too!

The recipe comes from the Konditor & Cook recipe book 'Deservedly Legendary Baking'. It's basically a rocky road, arranged to look like a grave site, with some bones and skeleton hands coming out of the grave!

 

You can find the recipe online here. I left out the glace cherries as I don't like them, and used large marshmallows cut in half rather than mini marshmallows. I didn't bother making the grass around the edge of the grave either.

The recipe states to use white marzipan to make the bones and gravestone but I don't even know where to get white marzipan and didn't have time to try making it myself. Instead I used white fondant.

 

It was very easy to make the bones - I just rolled some sausage shapes and used my thumb to press in the ends. I used black food colouring and a cocktail stick to write R.I.P. on the gravestone.

 

I hadn't really thought about the recipe in advance as I'd had an incredibly busy week at work but did manage to make the rocky road on Friday night so it could set overnight in the fridge. When I came to arrange and decorate it on Saturday I realised I should have made the tombstone from rice krispies. You can make a giant rice krispie cake by mixing the cereal with melted butter and melted marshmallows, and pressing it down tightly into a pan. Once it has set you can carve it into different shapes and cover it with fondant; this would be a great way of making an edible tombstone to go at the top of the grave. Of course the fondant I used is edible but I'm not sure I want to eat a giant block of icing!

 

I'm sharing this with the Food Calendar challenge, hosted by Charlotte's Lively Kitchen.

I'm also sending it to this month's Food 'n' Flix; Deb at Kahakai Kitchen has chosen Beetlejuice - the story of a couple who (spoiler alert!) wake up after an accident and find they didn't survive.

 

 

5 Easy Lunchbox Salads you can take to work for lunch

I've been eating a lot of salads lately, and taking one in to work every day for my lunch. It's cheaper than going out and buying one every day and this way I can put exactly what I want into it. Sometimes I get into a bit of a rut eating the same salads every day and end up looking around the internet for inspiration so I thought I'd share my current top five.

Please excuse the simple presentation - this is literally how I take the salads into work for lunch!
First up is really easy - any types of lettuce that you like, topped with feta cheese and chunks of fresh watermelon. A light vinaigrette dressing goes well with this. I usually eat this salad with a packet of ready cooked chicken pieces for protein and to make it more filling.

This salad is my latest addiction: pear, blue cheese and walnut. Again you can use any type of lettuce as a base, and if you like things like cucumber add it in (I don't). I used gorgonzola - I was going to use Roquefort but couldn't get any, but this worked really well. Top with peeled and sliced pear and a handful of walnuts. This goes well with a blue cheese dressing.

 

A different type of cheese for this salad: goat's cheese with bacon lardons (you need to cook the lardons first then let them go cold before adding to the salad). Use on a bed of your favourite lettuce. This goes well with a wine vinegar and Dijon mustard dressing.

 

 

 

This one takes a little longer to make but is good if you want something more substantial for lunch or to take on a picnic. Cook some pasta and drain; while it's still warm, toss through some green pesto from a jar, add some crayfish or prawns (I used crayfish here) and some pine nuts. You can serve this hot or cold.

Finally a bulgur wheat-based salad. This one does take a bit of preparation but you can make a larger quantity in one go. Put the bulgur wheat in a bowl and cover with water; leave for 15 minutes and then drain. Bring a pan of water to the boil - you need roughly three cups water to one cup bulgur wheat. Simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat and leave to stand for 5 minutes and drain off any excess water.

I used cubes of roasted butternut squash in this salad; sweet potato works really well. If you don't have time to cook, you can buy tubs of roasted sweet potato, butternut squash and carrot to add to salads from Tesco. I've also added feta cheese and some fresh parsley.

 

 

I've certainly got no excuse to have the same thing every day for lunch now!

White Chocolate, Banana and Walnut Gluten-Free Muffins

Some people crack open the champagne when they win an award - I crack open the flour and sugar.

I was recently named Writer of the Year (I know, right?!) by the Institute of Internal Communications (that's my day job in case you didn't know - Senior Writer in a bank's comms team) and as my fiancé was still too tired to go out in the evening - after weeks of working through the night and weekends on a big project - I decided to celebrate by throwing together some cakes to take into work the next day.

I had a few overripe bananas to use up and wanted something quick and easy to make, and my eye fell upon a cookery book called Muffin Magic by Susannah Blake. I found a recipe for nutty banana muffins and decided to adapt it to make it gluten-free as the lady I sit next to at work is gluten intolerant and I wanted her to be able to enjoy them as well. So here's what I did:

 

White Chocolate, Banana and Walnut Gluten-Free Muffins

300g gluten free self raising flour (I used Doves farm)

90g soft brown sugar

150ml skimmed milk

1 egg, beaten

100ml sunflower oil

2 ripe bananas, thinly sliced or mashed

85g walnut pieces, chopped

100g white chocolate chips - I used Dr Oetker

Preheat the oven to 200C. Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl.

 

Beat the egg and add to the sunflower oil and milk and pour onto the dry ingredients. Mix well.

 

 

 

Spoon into paper muffin cases and bake for 20 mins at 200C.

 

 

 

Allow to cool; I put some of them into tulip muffin cases - these are the kind you typically see in coffee shops - as I think it made them look nice.

 

 

 

The muffins were great - I couldn't tell any difference with using the gluten-free flour. They weren't too sweet so I actually had one for breakfast, and the rest of the muffins which I took into work disappeared pretty quickly!

 

 

I'm sharing these muffins with Alphabakes, the blog challenge I co-host with Ros of The More Than Occasional Baker, as the letter she has chosen this month is M.

 

 

I'm also sending this to We Should Cocoa, hosted by Tin and Thyme, as the ingredients to use for the challenge this month are chocolate and bananas.

 

 

Persian Roast Chicken with Walnut Pomegranate Sauce

Nigella says that roast chicken is the "basic unit of cooking" and when we had friends over for Sunday lunch recently, my first thoughts went to roast chicken. But I wanted something a bit more interesting than that, so I chose a recipe book I don't use very often - the Kitchenaid Recipe Collection - and had a look at the poultry section. There was a recipe for Person  chicken with walnut pomegranate sauce that looked delicious and really colourful so this is what I decided to make.

I changed the recipe a bit as the instructions were for a jointed chicken (using pieces like legs and thighs) and I wanted to do a whole chicken - one of the people I was cooking for doesn't eat meat on the bone so I thought being able to slice breast meat would be best. I also added oil to the paste mixture as it seemed too dry otherwise, and put the paste under the skin of the chicken as I don't like to eat the skin so it would be wasted by putting it on top. I used less onion and sugar in the sauce as well.

 

You need:
1 whole chicken
1 tbsp. cumin
1 tbsp. lemon juice
1 tbsp. oil
2 tsp grated lemon zest
1 tsp turmeric
1/4 tsp saffron threads, lightly crushed
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper

for the sauce:
1 onion, thinly sliced
Fry Light
2 cups pomegranate juice
3 tbsp. sugar
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/4 cup walnuts, finely chopped
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
50g pomegranate seeds

roast potatoes and vegetables to serve (though this would also go well with couscous or rice).


In a bowl mix the cumin, lemon juice and zest, turmeric, saffron, cinnamon, salt, pepper and oil until you have a thick paste. Spread under the skin of the chicken.

Cook the chicken according to pack instructions based on weight.

About 20 minutes before the chicken is ready to eat make the sauce. Place the onions with a few sprays of Fry Light in a small pan and heat until the onion has softened. Add the pomegranate juice, sugar, cumin and saffron. Bring to the boil and simmer until syrupy. Remove from the heat, stir in the walnuts, salt and pepper and pomegranate seeds.

The roast chicken was delicious as always and the spice rub was a nice change and the sauce went very well with it - though next time I might go back to bread sauce as I absolutely love bread sauce!

Carrot Cake with Walnut and Pineapple and Fondant Rabbit decoration

It wouldn't be Easter without the Easter bunny! This is a carrot cake I actually made last year but hadn't gotten around to blogging about yet. It is decorated with a fondant rabbit and carrots, which I will explain how to make below.

You need:

2 cups soft brown sugar

1 cup vegetable oil

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla flavouring

2.5 cups plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 cup walnuts, chopped

1 pound of carrots, grated

1/2 cup pineapple, chopped

For the icing:

1 cup soft cheese

1/2 cup butter, sofened

2 cups icing sugar, sifted

I made a rabbit from fondant to decorate but you can also decorate with extra walnuts.

Preheat oven to 180C. Mix the sugar and flour in a large bowl.

Weighing the carrots - then grate them

Mix the eggs, oil and grated carrot and add the vanilla flavouring

Mix in to the dry ingredients and add the baking powder and cinnamon

Stir in the chopped walnuts

Then stir in the chopped pineapple

Spoon the mixture into a cake tin and cook in the preheated oven for 45-60 minutes, testing with a skewer.

When cooked, remove from the oven and leave to cool.

I decided to make a rabbit and some carrots out of fondant to decorate the cake. First I coloured some white fondant with orange gel colouring left over from Halloween (Wilton brand) and some Sugarflair gooseberry colour for the carrot tops. I shaped the carrots and tops by hand; I used a knife to cut pieces out of the tops to make the greenery look more realistic, and used a fork to make indentations on the carrots.

To make the rabbit I followed the same principles as when I made a fondant cow. I made a large white ball for the body and a smaller one for the head, then cylinders of different sizes for the arms, legs and ears, I used some pink fondant for the centre of the ears and the nose, and a tiny bit of black fondant for the eyes. I used some modelling tools to make the indentations on the feet and also to make the mouth.

To make the frosting, carefully mix the soft cheese, butter and icing sugar until you have a suitably thick paste; if it needs to be thicker so you can spread it but it doesn't run, add more icing sugar. I spread the frosting over the top and around the sides of the cake.

Finally I placed the rabbit and carrots on top. This would be a good cake to make at Easter but it goes down well at any time of year!

I'm sharing this with Extra Veg, hosted by Helen at Fuss Free Flavours and Michelle at Utterly Scrummy; a carrot cake is a very tasty way to get one of your five a day!

I'm also sending this to Love Cake, hosted by Jibber Jabber UK, as the theme is "springing into Easter".

The theme for Calendar Cakes, hosted by Rachel at Dollybakes, is also Easter.

Carrot Cake

I made a carrot cake several months ago and was saving it until C came up as our letter for Alphabakes - it turns out I was waiting quite a long time! I can't take credit for the decorations unfortunately - the little carrots were made by my great friend Dr. Oetker. The cake is all my own work though!

I got the recipe from BBC Good Food - click on the link to see what ingredients you need. It is pretty simple to make as it is meant to be kind of lumpy so you can't go wrong!

Preheat the oven to 180C and grease a deep 20cm cake tin. Break the eggs into a bowl and whisk with a fork. Add the vegetable oil and whisk again.

Grate the carrot.

Place the grated carrot, raisins, walnut pieces and orange zest in a large bowl. Pour in the egg and oil mixture.

In a separate bowl, sift the flour, mixed spice, bicarbonate of soda and salt. Stir in the sugar.

Add the wet carrot mixture to the dry ingredients and mix well to combine.

Spoon the cake mixture into the prepared tin and bake for about an hour until a skewer comes out clean.

Cool in the tin for 10-15 mins then turn out and cool on a wire rack.

To make the frosting, beat the butter and icing sugar then add the cream cheese and beat again. The BBC recipe says to use caster sugar, but I prefer to use icing sugar.

Spread around the sides and on top of the cake once it has cooled.

Using a packet of chopped mixed nuts, stick handfuls of nuts around the side. It's easiest if you do this while the cake is on a large piece of greaseproof paper to catch the nuts which don't stick. Use your hands to pat the nuts on.

When I was in Germany I found a packet of Dr. Oetker marzipan carrot decorations in the supermarket. I've never seen them in the UK; has anyone else come across these? Carrots like this aren't hard to make but a ready made pack would definitely be helpful if you are pushed for time, and of course they are all exactly the same size and shape.

I placed the carrots around the top of the cake, after making sure the icing on top of the cake was smooth.

I'm sending this to Alphabakes, the blog challenge I co-host with Ros of The More Than Occasional Baker, as our letter this month is C.

I am also sending this to the One Ingredient Challenge, hosted by Laura of How To Cook Good Food, as the ingredient she has chosen this month is walnuts. The challenge is hosted in alternate months by Nazima at Franglais Kitchen.